Saturday, March 26, 2005

AARP’s Social Security deception

Have you seen the AARP commercial where a plumber disassembles a home to clear a clogged drain? Oh it’s a riot. FactCheck isn’t so impressed:

AARP's latest TV ad shows a suburban home being flattened to repair a clogged kitchen sink, and claims that the creation of individual accounts would "dismantle Social Security" and "lead to huge benefit cuts."

The ad is intended to be humorous but presents a distorted picture. It both understates Social Security's financial problems and misrepresents the effect that individual accounts would have.

Social Security's problems are more serious than a stopped-up drain. And the system isn't about to sink like the Titanic, either, as an earlier ad by Bush supporters says. Social Security is more like a home being eaten slowly by termites.
No, it’s not about to sink but it’s heading straight towards an iceberg.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is a losing issue for AARP as the baby boom has already started taking over the AARP membership while older members are cycling out.

Being a young 46-year old AARP member, I'm pro-individual acount as are increasing numbers of AARP members. I've already started seeing the AARP histeria in their magazine, unfortunately its not very accurate.

Maybe bloggers should hold AARP editors and leadership to the same standards of accuracy that were enforced on Dan Rather.