John Hallman Debates Social Security on Florida Radio

On Tuesday, November 16th, FreedomWorks Florida State Director John Hallman debated Social Security Reform with a liberal special interest group on WMNF 88.5 radio in Tampa Florida.

John’s opponent in the debate was Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal special interest group in Washington, D.C. John reported on the impending crisis with Social Security, reporting from the Social Security Administrations annual Trustee’s report. Mr. Weisbrot’s reply was that although Social Security would begin to run deficits by 2018, the Trust Fund would be able to sustain Social Security. John pointed out that the Trust Fund had no money and only IOU’s from money the Federal Government had borrowed through Treasury Notes. John continued by saying the only way for the government to pay back this money would be to raise taxes or cut government programs.

Mr. Weisbrot admitted that payroll taxes would have to eventually be raised to sustain Social Security, but “people have not complained about past raises in payroll taxes.”

Mr. Weisbrot also commented that citizens should be investing extra income in IRA’s or 410k’s. John Hallman commented that he was glad that Mr. Weisbrot agreed with the importance of not depending on the current Social Security system, but unfortunately low-income workers did not have the luxury of having extra income for outside investments. After the debate John Hallman commented “it was ironic that in Mr. Weisbrot’s arguments, he actually proved the need for Personal
Retirement Accounts.”