Social Security: President Obama's Biggest Failure in Last Week's Debate

Monday, 08 October 2012 00:00  
By Dean Baker, Truthout | Op-Ed 

President Obama definitely had a bad night when he faced Gov. Romney in Denver for the first presidential debate. However, for many listeners the worst moment was not due to his atypical inarticulateness. Rather the worst moment was when he quite clearly told the country that there was not much difference between his position on Social Security and Gov. Romney's. He also expressed his desire to "tweak" Social Security to improve its finances.

This is very bad news to the tens of millions of people who depend on Social Security now or expect to in the near future. It's also bad news to the hundreds of millions of people who have been counting on the Social Security system to provide a degree of financial security to their retired or disabled family members.