Ken Buck on Social Security | |
Buck charged that Bennet's television ads were dishonest, taking snippets of Buck's comments to portray him as wanting to privatize Social Security. Buck said he supported redesigning Social Security so that younger workers in the future would have the option of investing in separate retirement accounts. No one paying into the system would lose benefits, he insisted. "I've never said we should privatize Social Security," he told Bennet, who made that accusation against Buck in television ads. "You in your commercials take little clips out of context," Buck answered to cheers from his ranks.
FACT BUT MISLEADING: The use of Buck's own words makes what comes out of his mouth factual, but the way portions of his comments are used in the ad can be misleading without the proper context of the comment. The clip of Buck is from the Constitutionalist Today Forum on March 9. Buck was answering this question: "Is it constitutional for the government to have a Social Security program where it directs the monies that we put into it?"
Buck added, "In the '60s, when they took the money out of the trust fund to use to fund general fund programs, and what we ended up with was a system that will be bankrupt in 10-25 years from now. It is bad policy."
MISLEADING: A Buck spokesman wrote: "Ken is not in favor of privatizing social security." However, at the same forum at which the Bennet ad shows Buck speaking, Buck did say this: "The idea that the federal government should be running health care or retirement or any of those programs is fundamentally against what I believe, and that is that the private sector runs programs like that far better," said Buck.
The Christian Coalition voter guide [is] one of the most powerful tools Christians have ever had to impact our society during elections. This simple tool has helped educate tens of millions of citizens across this nation as to where candidates for public office stand on key faith and family issues.
The CC survey summarizes candidate stances on the following topic: "Allowing individuals to invest a portion of their Social Security tax in private retirement accounts"
Faith2Action.org is "the nation's largest network of pro-family groups." They provide election resources for each state, including Voter Guides and Congressional Scorecards excerpted here. The F2A survey summarizes candidate stances on the following topic: 'Social Security: Do you support allowing individuals to divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts?'
Project VoteSmart infers summary responses from campaign statements and news reports The PVS survey summarizes candidate stances on the following topic: 'Social Security: Do you support allowing individuals to divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts?'