Fred Thompson shows two of the worst Republican traits in his plan to change promised Social Security benefits for a generation of working Americans who have already been putting money into the Social Security system for years.

1. Fred Thompson’s plan would reduce the Social Security benefits young Americans just forming families now have been promised. By connecting benefits to the cost of goods rather than to income earned, Fred Thompson’s plan would provide most Americans with less.

2. Fred Thompson’s plan is sketchy on the particulars to prove that the plan would provide any benefit whatsoever. Scott Martelle of the Los Angeles Times writes, notes that Thompson’s proposals for price-indexing of Social Security “offered no estimates of what sort of savings that might lead to,” and criticizes the proposal overall for a “general lack of details”.

Social Security is too important to put into the hands of a vague, sloppy thinker who is willing to break promises with the working people of America. One thing about Social Security reform is certain: Republicans like Fred Thompson cannot be trusted to implement a reform that we can trust.

(Source: Baltimore Sun, November 10, 2007)

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