Rand Paul To NH Repubs: SocSec Disability Is A Scam; Recipients Are Malingerers

Josh Marshall, head honcho at TPM, tells you everything you need to know about GOP plans to whack Social Security:

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Paul the Younger; Paul the Snot-nosed

Speaking to Republican presidential primary voters in New Hampshire, [Sen. Rand] Paul said that most Social Security disability recipients are in fact malingerers and scofflaws who have no business receiving benefits in the first place.

"The thing is that all of these programs, there’s always somebody who’s deserving, everybody in this room knows somebody who’s gaming the system. I tell people that if you look like me and you hop out of your truck, you shouldn’t be getting a disability check. Over half the people on disability are either anxious or their back hurts. Join the club. Who doesn’t get up a little anxious for work every day and their back hurts? Everyone over 40 has a back pain."

As Michael Hiltzik explains here (and others have in other publications), as a narrowly factual matter these claims are demonstrably false and by a huge margin. Even if you think that severe anxiety disorders and chronic back problems aren't real disabilities, they don't make up anywhere that number of recipients. But the headline isn't really the point. It's the subtext. The score rather than the libretto. The point is that this is taxpayer money for people who don't want to work, people complaining about everyday problems that most of us get by with no problem as an excuse to get a government check.

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(Bolds mine. - SB)

Marshall then points out that the whole zero-sum nature — retirees vs. disabled competing for the same dollars — is manufactured by proudly self-proclaimed libertarians like Sen. Paul. The whole idea is to shrink the funding of SocSec for everyone.

I'd like to see either of the Pauls, father or son, try to earn an honest living in a fair labor market. Even better, I'd like to see them try to earn a living under the very restrictions they have placed, or will have placed, on SocSec recipients. I'd bet on the granny-starvers to starve their very own selves under those conditions. And I'd just laugh and laugh.