Reading Between the Lies: Report #9
By Hans Riemer, Senior Policy Analyst
10/10/02 | PDF

NJ Senate Candidate Doug Forrester Gets Caught Misleading Voters

New York Times points out that Republicans have called private accounts “privatization” for years

Former Senator Frank Lautenberg kicked off his campaign for the New Jersey seat by criticizing Doug Forrester’s position on partial-privatization of Social Security. 

Forrester, during his primary fight for the Republican nomination, wrote on his website that he supported using Social Security money for private investments.  The Forrester approach would cause Social Security’s guaranteed benefits to fall sharply, replacing them with riskier private investments. 

But rather than defend his position on private accounts, Doug Forrester is trying to mislead voters about it by denying that he supports privatization. 

And reporters from the New York Times caught him in the act:

Speaking at a retirement center in Willingboro, Mr. Lautenberg warned that Mr. Forrester was a threat to the solvency of Social Security because he favored a plan to partly privatize the program.  Mr. Forrester, the former director of pensions for the state, said he opposed privatization, but his Web site during the Republican primary said he supported private retirement accounts, which many Republicans in Washington characterize as a step toward privatizing Social Security. [New York Times; 10/08/02]

The key point here is that when Republicans say that they “oppose privatization,” they are misleading voters because Republicans themselves have called private accounts “privatization” or “partial-privatization” for years.  Even Karl Rove has used privatization to describe private accounts.  While discussing VP nominee Dick Cheney’s qualifications in a CNN interview during the 2000 campaign, Rove said, "On Social Security privatization, encouraging private personal retirement accounts, Cheney was for them.”  [CNN, 8/13/00 http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/08/13/talk.wrap/]

Privatization is not a Democratic word or a Republican word – it’s an accurate word.  As the Minneapolis Star Tribune recently editorialized, “’Privatization’ is a perfectly accurate term for plans that would take money out of the public sector and return it to taxpayers, allow individuals to invest the money and own the assets, turn account management over to private Wall Street firms and remove the federal government as a guarantor of those retirement benefits.” [Star Tribune, 10/09/02 http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/3352955.html]

Doug Forrester is not playing it straight on Social Security.  The voters deserve to know that.  If candidates want to advocate for private accounts, that is their business.  But they should do it honestly, without misleading the voters by claiming they oppose reducing Social Security’s guarantee, or that they oppose “privatization.”  And if they try to shade the truth, they should get called on it. 

For more information about Social Security visit our Social Security Superpage.