Walberg's Misleading Social Security Mailer

 

Note: This report was initially posted earlier today as a Twitter thread (@TakeCareTim), as a series of 280-character-limit parts, and is presented here in the same way.

   Lots to say about @RepWalberg’s new 12”x9” tax-funded mass mailer. It’s big, expensive & flashy for a bill he introduced & evidently doesn’t care about. HR 2266 is similar to last term’s HR 7765. Walberg delivered no speeches & had zero cosponsors on either bill.

   Walberg’s put more public resources into advancing that mailer to mislead seniors into believing he cares about Social Security, than he’s put into advancing his bill through Congress. Walberg used to be openly hostile to Social Security, but now keeps intentions cloaked.

   During his losing 2004 campaign, @RepWalberg was open with his hostile feelings about Social Security. He called it Socialism, big government dependency, & proposed privatizing it. After realizing that’s a literal losing message, he cloaked those intentions & won.

   1st way @RepWalberg learned to cloak his hostility was to call for protecting “the promise” of Social Security & intentionally neglecting to say what “the promise” is. It’s darkly cynical because Walberg believes “the promise” assures for no Social Security benefits.

   Walberg’s cloak sometimes slips, such as 2010 iCaucus interview where he called for Social Security privatization, that it’s a Ponzi Scheme, & said there are no legal “promised” benefits. Audio (10:30 mark): https://soundcloud.com/mi07rawfootage/walberg-icaucus-interview

   2nd way @RepWalberg cloaks hostility is to introduce nice-sounding, but toxic bills such as, “Social Security & Medicare Lock-Box Act”. Zero other members have cosponsored that bill in four of the Congressional terms that Walberg has introduced it.

   At a town hall, when a constituent asked about specifics of that Lock-Box bill that @RepWalberg authored & reintroduced every Congressional term for a decade, Walberg failed to explain what his own legislation says. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wq9X8hW39g

   In @RepWalberg’s new mailer about U.S. Social Security, the stock photos were both from Europe: Spain & The U.K. One of which was a composite where the head and body of the U.K. woman were taken from different photos.

   Some claims @RepWalberg makes about his bill in the mailer are not evident in the bill itself, particularly with “requiring one-year advance notice” of payment increases. Overall, I think it is cruel how misleading Walberg is with this mailer.