Everything McCain says always requires some explanation. He's too old to be in office. Obama is in his prime and that's what we need.

As for McCains suggestion, well, I wish my taxes went it to my own account. Then I wouldn't be held to the "standard" and might actually get paid more in the long run, so long as I have a good paying job. May sound selfish, but I see it as the harder you work the more you are rewarded. No free rides.

It would also help to keep me motivated and driven by remembering that I would be rewarded in the end by working/trying hard. Maybe it would do the same for others and America wouldn't be the most lazy and overweight country in the world, generally speaking.

I don't like McCain, and I won't be voting for him.

That said, I must also say he deserves credit for TRYING to get the looming, Massive problem of funding S.S. & Medicare, with our changing demographics, into the political conversation!

It's an UGLY issue, offering only UNPOPULAR choices to address it, and it takes GUTS on the part of a politician to put something like that before the public.

And what's the "media" reaction?

Do they examine the issues he's trying to put into the public eye? Do they research the issue? Report on the studys? The OMB & CBO projections?

No. They sidetrack the whole discussion to attack him over some phrasing he used!

You guys are PATHETIC! And you are NOT doing a public service with this sort of partisan, "find some minutiae to squeal about", "attack the guy's presentation and ignore the substance" crap.

Look at the SOCIAL SECURITY/MEDICARE PROBLEM fer cryin' out loud! THAT'S the Real Issue!
WHY are you sidestepping it?!?!

that the kind of remark i'd expect from a younger conservative, but from a 71 year old? if he weren't rich mccain might very well be relying on those exact same tax dollars for his meds and his viagra. i'm not sure if mccain is just amazingly stupid sometimes or just incredibly honest.

and why doesn't the media ask the obvious question: who pays for the old people when the new money is diverted elsewhere?

@nmc: touche.

J:

McCain spouts the RW rhetoric but is a few bricks short of a full load.

If there wasn't Social Security, believe me, the Right would find other ways of getting your money, the average citizen will never be allowed just to keep all of their own money. Social Security has been supported by working people to help working people for years, but the problem is that the government wanted to use the money, and just took it, really stole it, but when the government steals from the people, it's different - account no recourse; therefore, it is somehow the people's fault. The problem with Social Security is conservative government's fault. They should have left Social Security alone, but the Conservative Right and Left want to destroy Social Security.

Social Security and Medicare are good programs for the people that you will be glad you supported when it is your time to retire or need help. I hope Obama's government will find ways to continue all social programs that are a safety net for the 70% common population.

If I had access to $100,000,000 (Mrs. McCain's), perhaps I would feel differently about the way Social Security is funded. But the cold hard facts are that my husband was disabled at age 54 from a debilitating stroke, and if it were not for his Social Security disability we would have lost everything! Once more a wealthy candidate can't wait to continue eliminating the middle class. Everything my father's generation fought for is lost. Voting Democratic this fall!

No the disgrace isn't the way SS is funded. Neither is it that in a so-called Christian nation the workers of today help to support the previous generation (instead of just selfishly thinking about their own future, which they may never see). The disgrace is this phony focus on the "crisis" in Social Security.

The right screams about this crisis; projections show that SS will be paying out more than it takes in in another 12, or 17, or 45, or 75 years. IT MUST BE FIXED!!

So why isn't it a crisis that the federal government has been taking in more than it pays out SINCE BUSH'S VERY FIRST BUDGET? Hey this has been going on for the last 7 years; that should be more of a crisis than something that is PROJECTED to occur some time in the future.

It's disgraceful that the only solution I've heard him propose to that crisis is to extend the tax cuts (continuing to reduce the amount taken in), and to freeze spending, except for 'defense'. That is another disgrace. McCain wants to freeze spending on programs that help Americans, but not touch spending on 'defense', which is the biggest sinkhole in the federal budget. 'Defense' spending is where the most waste, and fraud, can be found, and where the greatest savings can also be found. But of course he isn't willing to go there.

J, what kind of world do you live in. Having more money has nothing to do with how hard you worked. There are people living just above or below the breadline who carry two jobs or work 18 hour days and have barely anything to show for it.

My beliefs aside, I agree with Dave D. Conservatives have pulled off the most amazing trick on the people of the U.S. They combined predatory wealth accumulation with the notion of Christianity. The Jesus used to coerce people in the U.S. would NEVER hand out lots of food to people who refuse to work and probably moved here illegally! The Jesus of our Admin packs a 9mm and has a few Exxon shares in the portfolio. How dare you complain that you can't afford to eat after slaving away for 45 years! You should say thank you for getting a fast track to death and the eternal sunshine that awaits you. If you were poor, you just weren't devout enough. We are in the Dark Ages again, with the benefit of technology. How deliciously ironic.

I've been paying into Social Security and Medicare for over 34 years now.

What I can't stomach is that all the money paid in by the boomers has been "borrowed" at 0% interested to fund worthwhile things like the war in Iraq.

I believe what will work is to raise the income cap in SS withholding tax as revealed in Obama's plan.

btw: Great interview with the Obama Family on Access Hollywood. It brought tears to my eyes. Camelot II in 4 months. I can't wait.

As a former admirer of John McCain and who, over the last year or so, has grown disenchanted with his choice of philosophic pillars in his single-minded attempt to win the nomination of the Republican Party (forget the general election - foregone conclusion IMHO), I find a renewed inclination to reestablish my support for the old war horse if only on this point. The state of the SS system is, without a doubt, a disgrace of the first order.

The state of the SS system has not been a secret nor have dire warnings not been common knowledge for the last 30 years or more. And still, much like our tendency to avoid facing issues like global warming, energy independence, profligate government and personal indebedtness, acknowledgement of changes in the power relationships of a new world ordering (until they are on the brink of a national crisis), we avoid the issue like it might tire of shrouding our futures, lose interest and just go away.

To attempt to ignore the looming specter of the ratio of workers to recipients is to ignore the oncoming conflict which will be measured in generational disenchantment as the full extent of the cost of the support of this baby boomer load in the near future manifests itself. Although I have reservations about the class of solutions loosly referred to as the privatization of SS, suprisingly I don't resent this. It represents more of an attempt to address the issue than the head-in-the-sand stance of many legislative leaders tasked with the recognition and resolution of the problem. Unfortunately they find it best to recognize the danger of the "third rail" and move on to more substantial issues like gay marriage, providing earmarks for "friends" or generating more IOUs on the 'lockbox' of SS revenues in order to disfigure the perception of a ever expanding deficit.

The current state of the economy and the mythical power of the stock market go along way to show some of the weaknesses of the privitization solution as well as the inclination to highlight the difficulties of providing a viable social system for the lump represented by the oncoming baby boomers inclined not to work until they drop. A well thought out and deeply serious consideration by all interested parties would be such a refreshing change that I am sure I would begin to doubt I was still in the good 'ol USA.

There is no alternative and this press must happen unless our decision is a collective inaction tending to hasten a degraded position on the world stage. All the issues I have mentioned and more, of course, are bound together in the need for an integrated plan of attack. Therefore we could provide for a generation who, in part, provided for the previous generation's unprecedented standard of living, avoidance of world environmental meltdown, a grip on spending and savings disorder and the plan to keep much of our standing in the world by virtue of better decisions on how the societal and economic realities ought to be perceived and incentives designed. It would be a strength to realize that these issues are intimately wrapped up in each other and the correct solution for one will affect the others.

That is the kind of Change that I would vote for if I become convinced that there is someone who embodied such atypical drive and vision. Otherwise, we stand to be observers of the decline of American leadership and the rise of other social orders which may prove to be in the mold of a different sort of collective sense of direction and priorities. Maybe good...maybe not.