Democrats continue to scare seniors by telling them that Republicans want to privatize their Social Security accounts, even though it's not true, and they need to stop, says
The Washington Post's Fact Checker column.
It's an argument Democrats have been making since at least the 2008 presidential campaign, and "polling must show that such false attacks work" because it is being used again by a Democratic PAC in ads against a Republican running for Congress in Arizona.
House Majority PAC has launched a series of ads against Martha McSally, saying the Arizona Republican "wants to raise the retirement age. And McSally supported a plan that the AARP says privatizes Social Security in the stock market."
Post Fact Checker writer Glenn Kessler reports that the former U.S. Air Force pilot has always said that she promotes raising the retirement age only for younger workers and has only proposed allowing Americans the option to invest a portion of their benefits.
While Kessler says McSalley needs to be more clear on exactly what she means by such vague statements, as her language has varied some, he says the Democratic group is mislabeling her position as privatization.
"Martha's position has not changed," Kristen Douglas, McSally's deputy campaign manager, told Kessler. "She has not and does not support privatizing Social Security, and the idea that she does was and is a deliberate and blatant attempt by Nancy Pelosi to distort Martha's position and scare seniors. Martha has consistently stated on the record that she is fully committed to ensuring promises made to seniors are kept."
Kessler says the ad does not check out when put up against the facts.
"She has spoken of improving the solvency of Social Security by raising the retirement age, but only for younger workers, presumably in exchange for different investment options that she has only vaguely described," he writes.
"This ad has rather flimsy evidence to justify the use of such politically charged code words," Kessler concludes. "It's time for Democrats to stop playing this particular scare-seniors card."