Granny Bird Award: Rick Santorum

Rick Santorum is the latest winner of the Granny Bird Award, that award given from time to time to those who go out of their way to harm the interests of the elders in this country. The GOP candidate for the 2012 GOP nomination earned this prize in particularly dramatic fashion: by trying to win the duel to see who could gut social security benefits the fastest.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum called Friday for immediate cuts to Social Security benefits, risking the wrath of older voters and countless others who balk at changes to the entitlement program.

"We can't wait 10 years," even though "everybody wants to," Santorum told a crowd while campaigning in New Hampshire and looking to set himself apart from his Republican rivals four days before the New Hampshire primary. ...

This week, he told New Hampshire audiences that Americans over 65 were society's poorest age group in 1937, when Social Security was created. Now that group is the wealthiest, he said.

He also noted that Americans now live much longer, putting far bigger demands on the government retirement program. [Emphasis added]

Like his confreres, Santorum conveniently overlooks the fact that this program is not paid for by the government, but by money which each worker has deducted from his paycheck. Some of us paid into our accounts for nearly fifty years. It's our money they're talking about.

Further, while the Social Security Trust Fund will need some shoring up, that can be accomplished by simply raising the limit of earned income subject to the payroll tax by 5-10%. That will hardly bust those earning more than $106,000 per year.

Finally, as to the assertion that those over 65 years of age compromise the wealthiest group in the country, well, that's one he pulled out of the south end of his alimentary canal. Most baby boomers I know don't have the benefit of an employer-provided pension to supplement social security, and their 401k accounts have been decimated by the economic upheavals of the past ten years.

Little Ricky is playing us, and is doing so just to get votes. He's earned his award.