More than a few loyal Deceiver readers have sent us this tip, so let’s take a look. The Associated Press wrote on Thursday:
Although Republican presidential candidate John McCain has called Social Security “a disgrace,” he still cashes his own retirement check every month.
“I’m receiving the benefits, the system is broken and, unfortunately, my children and grandchildren, according to the trustees of the Social Security system, will not have the same benefits the present retirees have,” McCain told reporters Thursday on his campaign bus.
McCain’s 2007 tax return shows Social Security benefits of $23,157 for the year, an average of $1,929.75 a month …
McCain reported a total income of $405,409 in 2007. As a senator, he is paid $169,300 a year. Last year, he donated $105,467 to charity, his return shows.
McCain’s wife, Cindy, reported a total income of more than $6 million in 2006, according to the campaign. She files her tax return separately from her husband and has received an extension for 2007. Heiress to a large Arizona beer distributorship, she is reportedly worth more than $100 million.
I don’t think the issue here is hypocrisy. It’s having balls the size of Arizona.
How is it that anyone who earns $400,000 a year manages to endorse a Social Security benefit check with a straight face? (I know, I know … it’s done via direct-deposit. But you get the point.)
I’m not old enough to receive Social Security benefits, so perhaps I have no right to offer an opinion. But maybe we ought to just take them away from able-bodied old folks in the top 1 percent of income earners. Too socialist? Maybe. But I’d still bust my ass to try to end up in the group of poor schlubs who get screwed out of their checks.
So Johhny Mac is not a hypocrite for accepting benefits from a “broken” system. Just full of hubris for cashing entitlement checks he doesn’t need. If you still disagree, consider this: Barack Obama says that all of Washington is “broken,” but he still accepts his government salary. I’m just saying …
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Wow.
just….wow.
He put the money in, why should he not get the money out? Remember - Social Security is not a government “gift”, the recepients have paid over the years of earning (at least back to the beginning of Social Security). Please get a clue.
I’ll say the system is broke. You don’t have to be retired to collect Social Security benefits? I thought the benefits were for retirees? So at age 65, even if you’re still working, the government just hands you money?
You know what though, if I was McCain I’d collect too. I paid into the damn thing I’m gonna get my money back before it collapses in on itself. They are giving you your own money back right?
I’m confused.
I have no problem with anyone, no matter how much money they make cashing their Social Security checks. I am almost old enough to get mine and I’m not going to be made to feel guilty about taking it. This is our money. They took it out of our paychecks whether we wanted them to or not. I deserve it more (and so does John McCain) than does some 30 year old drug addict that hasn’t paid any in. We need to get the fact that the government has no money of its own. It only has what it takes from our pockets. I am going to get back as much of what that took from me as I can.
I would like to know when it was okay to get paid for a job you’re not doing? I don’t think any of the presidential candidates have been much in the senate to vote or anything since the campaigning started, and yet they still cash their paychecks. If I don’t go to work, I don’t get paid. Period. You want hubris? There it is. Be absent from a job you were elected to do, and still get your money. (And free car, and free gas, and free food, and free travel… (you get the idea)
Social Security was designed for everyone. Rich and poor. He paid into it…he has a right to use it even if he thinks it is a broken system. I have no problem with him claiming his portion of Social Security benefits. This is what you get from a Socialist program…an equal share in the misery. The government needs to get out of the business of taking citizen’s money away from them just because the government thinks it knows how to use the money better.
i def. think he’s two faced for cashing in on that.. please!
A few things here:
I don’t think it’s hypocritical to criticize a broken system but still accept payments. After all, he did pay for it for the past 40 years or so. He paid into the system; it’s only fair he received its “benefits” too.
I hate SS and rather take that money and invest it myself. But I have no problem having my disabled wife collect her SS. Same reason… she paid into the system, and it was part of the deal.
Also, you may think he doesn’t need the money, which is true, but where do you draw the line? We’re a very very middle class family. I do ok, and we could survive without my wife’s SS money just fine. But it still helps us, and I don’t feel guilty at all.
I also find it interesting that while my wife made a very average salary for 20 years, never close to the $100k salary cap on SS taxes, her social security payments are VERY close to McCain’s. McCain made at least 5x as much as her, I’m sure, but they get relatively the same SS payments? Seems like the socialism is already installed there… he’s punished for being “too rich”.
McCain is a hypocrite for continuing to vote to use Social Security money to fund an out of control president and his bogus wars. McCain has done nothing to stop the government from raiding the “retirement fund.” Something that any CEO would be indicted for if it was found he raided his company’s retirement funds to avoid bankruptcy. The system works exactly as it should. The federal government is withdrawing money to pay for non-Social Security items.
That’s not hypocrisy, this is:
I’m a bit confused.
The media, and others, constantly bash John McCain for his age. Yet, this same media treated Ronald Reagan like some sort of political god … and Reagan was much older than McCain when Reagan won his elections.
BTW: People who pay into SSA are actually paying for the currently checks. SSA is not a savings account into which a taxpayer pays into with the right to withdraw those deposits at some future date. This scheme is one of the problems with SSA: not enough people are paying enough into the system to cover the amount of the disbursements. It will get worse as the baby boomers age into the system.
Actually, not true. Reagan was 69 when he was first elected president in 1980. McCain is already 71.
I don’t have a problem with McCain collecting on a system he’s paid into. Whether we disagree with the SS system or not, we are forced to use it, so why not?
Discordia, if I remember correctly, while Reagan was younger when he became president than McCain is now, he did take a lot of crap for his age at the time. I was only a little tykette, but I remember everyone making an issue of his age and his unnaturally black hair.
I’d say someone who suffered 6 years of brutal torture at the hands of communist thugs is just a little bit entitled to a friggin’ measely social security check.
More so, at least than the whiney, nit-picking, jackasses trying to play ‘gotch-ya’ with un-news like this.
Now get back to work.
Doesn’t Obama cash his Senate checks? And doesn’t he say DC is broken?
I’m not a fan of either McCain or Obama, but I think he is getting a raw deal here. The stuff McCain suffered & years of his life he gave up in the Hanoi Hilton & life long physical trauma he suffered for his country more than entitles him to “his” benefits.
FDR himself planned to include private investment accounts in the Social Security program when he proposed it.
In a written statement to Congress in 1935, Roosevelt said that any Social Security plans should include, “Voluntary contributory annuities, by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age,” adding that government funding, “ought to ultimately be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.”
FDR suggested the following proposal, but the third portion consisting of voluntary annuities (Title XI) was stricken from the final bill on the last day of Senate debate:
In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles:
First, non-contributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps thirty years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions.
Second, compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations.
Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age.
Just because someone is richer than you does not mean he is not entitled to this money. He is someone that definately paid his dues in life and deserves to collect like everyone else. Don’t act like a bunch of haters!
If you want an example of hypocrisy, just look here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JE48XHKG64
I think this is a moral issuse for sure. Does someone who makes $400,000 a year really need a SS cheque every month? I realize he suffered greatly for his country, but what about those who did and don’t make that kind of money? Isn’t that a slap in the face to them? Does he donate to charities to help out his fellow POWs? I really hope he is doing something positive with the money, other wise he would seem pretty greedy and wastful. Of course he has the right to take the money, but I guess the question is does he really need it? If he is going to complain about how the system is broken and abuse, shouldn’t he not abuse it? Oh and how does SS work in the US? Is it similar to CPP in Canada? Do you have EI (employment insurance) there as well?