Congressman Toomey Admits His Social Security Scheme Would Expand the Deficit

Toomey runs from his record but struggles to hide truth about plan to privatize system

MEDIA, Pa. – Congressman Toomey, who continues to mislead people about his record, finally admits his plan to privatize Social Security would explode the deficit.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that Congressman Toomey admits his plan to put the retirement security of 700,000 Pennsylvanian seniors in the hands of Wall Street would add to the federal deficit.

According to the piece:
“Mr. Toomey has acknowledged that his prescription would in fact worsen the system’s funding gap, leading to larger short-term deficits that would have to be financed by borrowing or some other new source of revenue.” [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 09/06/10]

In fact, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, privatizing Social Security would add $4.9 trillion to the federal deficit. While Congressman Toomey has claimed to be a champion against government spending and reducing our national debt, this is not the first time he’s advocated for this fiscally irresponsible and risky plan.

On at least 36 occasions Congressman Toomey has spoken in favor of privatizing Social Security. He also devotes an entire chapter to his plan in his book, The Road to Prosperity, a plan he admits “would lead to larger near-term deficits in the Social Security system” and would force new workers to take part in the system. [The Road to Prosperity, pg. 129]

This is just one example of the extremist agenda Congressman Toomey has tried to hide from Pennsylvanians with misleading statements and ads from out-of-state special interests intent on electing one of Wall Street’s own to the U.S. Senate.

Toomey has run a campaign full of deceiving claims, ignoring his own record and expecting that Pennsylvanians won’t hold him accountable for what he has said or done.

Team Toomey’s Claims vs. the Facts

On being just a former small business owner

The Facts: 

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, in 2000, Toomey admitted that he “delegated the day-to-day running” of the restaurant to his brother, and was a “hands-off” owner who visited “once a month or less over the years he held majority ownership.”

In his own words: “‘For most of the period of ’91 in which Rockin’ Robin’s was opened, I was living and working in Hong Kong’ as a banker, Toomey said.” [Inquirer, 7/9/10]

On claiming to be a fiscal conservative who wants to reduce the deficit

The Facts:

“I don’t think deficits are the biggest problem here.” [Toomey Interview, MSNBC, Hardball with Chris Matthews, 7/11/2006]

Allowed PAYGO rules to expire after they contributed to 3 budget surpluses by requiring Congress to offset the cost of any new spending programs, then voted against re-establishing them, allowing our deficit to skyrocket [HR 4663, 6/25/04, #317; SConRes 95, 5/5/04, #145]

Voted for President Bush’s budgets that raised government spending more than $50 billion every year

Voted for President Bush’s tax cuts for the richest of the rich – more than 50 percent of which went to the top one percent – and added $1.7 trillion to the deficit [HR 1836, 5/26/01, #149]

On claiming he never seriously wanted to eliminate corporate taxes

The Facts:

According to St. Petersburg Times’ PolitiFact: “We gave the Toomey camp the opportunity to say the candidate opposes zero corporate taxation, but the campaign did not do so.”

On CNBC, Congressman Toomey said: “Let’s not tax corporations . . . I think the solution is to eliminate taxes altogether.” [CNBC, 7/20/08]

Click here to view more of Congressman Toomey’s claims vs. reality.