This Hill Magazine article shows that it’s never too early for Democrats to play the Social Security scare card. Here’s what the Hill is reporting:

National Democrats continue to bet heavily on Social Security privatization as a trump card in the 2008 elections, launching attack ads in three more districts Tuesday that accuse GOP candidates of supporting risky private accounts.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is now up with at least eight ads on the topic, while Senate Democrats are using the issue in ads in Louisiana and Oregon.

Tuesday’s additions go after a pair of Pennsylvania candidates, Rep. Phil English and top challenger Lou Barletta, as well as former Rep. Mike Sodrel (R-IN). And in another Pennsylvania race, Rep. Jason Altmire (D) is also up with a new ad linking former Rep. Melissa Hart (R) to President Bush’s privatization plan.

Alicia Collins, the campaign manager for Melissa Hart, took issue with the Altmire campaign for running ads that were intended to scare people. Here’s what Ms. Collins said in response to the DCCC’s ads:

“It seems that Jason Altmire is once again getting his direction from the Obama/Pelosi playbook, scare the public about any idea put forward, but offer no ideas of your own,” said Campaign Manger, Alicia Collins.

Collins added, “Instead of airing untrue and extremely misleading advertisements to scare people about their financial future, Congressman Altmire should get back to work in Washington and address the current financial crisis.”

I’m personally calling Jason Altmire out on this. It’s a gutless thing to let an ad like that run. It’s intellectually bankrupt. It’s indefensible. Most importantly, it tells me that he doesn’t have a positive agenda to run on.

He’s a freshman. That means he doesn’t have any accomplishments to speak of. How could he when the 110th Congress didn’t accomplish anything meaningful except at gunpoint? The only accomplishments they have was FISA reform, which they wouldn’t vote on until the extension had almost expired, and passing an increase in the minimum wage. What’s noteworthy is that the minimum wage didn’t pass until Democrats included tax cuts that Republicans wanted in the bill. It should also be noted that the minimum wage increase didn’t pass as a standalone bill; it was included in the Iraq Supplemental.

Here’s proof that the DCCC’s ad isn’t accurate:

All of those claims have already been discredited by FactCheck.org on September 20, 2008 in “Obama’s Social Security Whopper”:

“The plan… 2005 would not have allowed anyone born before 1950 to invest any part of their Social Security taxes in private accounts. All current retirees would be covered by the same benefits they are now.

The private accounts would have been voluntary.

Obama’s reference to “casino culture,” disappearing “nest eggs” and gambling with “your life savings” are also misleading exaggerations. Only a little under one-third of any workers’ total Social Security taxes could have been invested (a maximum of 4 percent of taxable wages, out of the total 12.4 percent now paid, split equally between worker and employer.)

Speculation in individual stocks would not have been permitted. Workers would have had a choice of a few, broadly diversified stock or bond funds.”

In other words, Democratsare playing the same despicable games that they play every election cycle. Jason Altmire isn’t the first Democrat to play this game. He won’t be the last. He’s just the latest morally bankrupt Democrat to play the card.

Technorati Tags: Scare Card, Jason+Altmire, Minimum Wage, DCCC, Social Security, Melissa Hart, Phil English, Lou Barletta, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

1. OK. So now we are to believe that Melissa Hart was NOT for privatizing social security and she was against deregulation by stripping federal agencies of their budgets and manpower? Next, I suppose we’ll hear that she wasn’t really for the war in Iraq. In fact, it looks like she was for those things before she was against them.

   This is pure Republicanism. Violently advocate for a cause like the Iraq war or deregulation and accuse people who dissent of being unpatriotic or being against the free market. But then when the plan inevitably collapses, proponents of Rove Republicanism like Melissa Hart not only run from their core principles, they accuse the Democrats of causing the problem.

   Now Republicanism wants us to believe that the mortgage crisis was really caused by liberals pushing banks to give mortgage loans to welfare Moms, and that the billions that bankers made on the backs of U.S. taxpayers was an unimportant, unintentional by-product.

   The middle class will pay for this bailout, and they need to decide who really is more likely to drive these policies in Washington, billionaires and big corporations or a bunch of poor and working class people up to their eyeballs in credit cards and mortgage payments. Melissa Hart’s Republicanism will deny that she was ever for deregulation and ask you to believe that liberals and poor people tell the banks what to do, but let’s not forget that this Melissa Hart is part of the same party that would have us believe, like Sarah Palin, that the world is 5000 years old and that a ten year old frozen stem cell is more important than a woman dying of breast cancer or a kid with leukemia.

   It’s not reality. It’s Republicanism.

   Comment by Mike McNally — October 2, 2008 @ 3:15 pm