Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Rick Santorum on Social Security

Raise retirement age? Maybe. Private investment? Yes.
Senator Santorum, on a videotape made in 1994, said he planned to raise the retirement age for Social Security benefits and to privatize the program. Santorum says he believes that Social Security should not be paid out until workers hit the age of 70. "It is ridiculous that we have a retirement age in this country of age 65 today," Santorum says emphatically, noting that many people receive benefits for two decades before dying. "Push it back to at least age 70," continues the senator. "I'd go even further if I could, but I don't think I could pass it."
Santorum has since backed away from raising the retirement age, but he's in the forefront of pushing for younger workers to be allowed to invest part of their payroll taxes themselves. He says it is their money and they have a right to try for better returns than the program currently provides.

Source: Jill Zuckman, Boston Globe, p. A1 & A12 May 15, 2000

Social Security needs reform sooner rather than later
Santorum says the Social Security program is in grave danger of going bankrupt and if the future insolvency is not addressed now, it will be much more difficult to deal with later. "There's an absolute certainty that Social Security will run out of money, and benefits will be cut and taxes will go up," Santorum said. "[Democrats] are ignoring the fact that Social Security is in trouble; they're just saying, `Oh, this is a risky scheme.'"
Source: Jill Zuckman, Boston Globe, p. A12 May 15, 2000

Then in September 2005, Santorum must have started to fear for his re-election potential and he started going down this road

Santorum said he intends to introduce the Social Security Guarantee Act of 2005 this week. The bill would require the Treasury secretary to issue to each Social Security recipient a personalized certificate of a written guarantee of a monthly benefit, plus a guaranteed annual cost-of-living increase. The legislation would apply to any individual born before 1950.

The senator said seniors are concerned that reforms to strengthen Social Security for younger workers may reduce their benefits. "I'm trying to make an incremental step forward," he said. "One of the things I believe is important is to try to take the fear factor out of the Social Security debate. If we can't accomplish anything substantively in improving the system for younger workers, at least what we can do is assure the folks who are at or near retirement that we aren't going to take their benefits."

Somehow Dems everywhere and especially in PA must put together a documentary showing how sleazy this guy really is.  Can you imagine this guy actually has the gall to run adds showing him the champion of the old SS program even for a subset group.  It would be like Bush now all of a sudden running adds on how successful Saddam Hussein was in keeping peace in Iraq!