I was under the impression that, to qualify for Social Security benefits, you had to be retired or only working part-time. McCain is clearly working full-time and his salary is well over $100,000 per year...how does he qualify for benefits?

They changed the rules about ten years ago. Now, you can start collecting benefits at 62 or 65, depending on your risk calculations. My department head at Troy started collecting when they changed the rules.

From SSA:

If you work and are full retirement age or older, you may keep all of your benefits, no matter how much you earn. If you are younger than full retirement age, there is a limit to how much you can earn and still receive full Social Security benefits. If you are younger than full retirement age during all of 2008, we must deduct $1 from your benefits for each $2 you earned above $13,560.

I hate to pick on my ex-co-blogger Brock, but (in fairness to him) his post is what triggered the thought. Al Gore today apparently joined those who have called for a carbon tax to replace payroll taxes, to produce a revenue-neutral means of reducing c...

Why is it hypocritical to cash a check to get his own money back?

Because he is trying to prevent others from being able to do the same? Others who don't get an allowance from their very rich wives...

They force a man to pay into a system that he knows is a bad investment and gives a bad return on his money. They then attack him for being outspoken about how poor a job they do in managing his money they forced him to pay in. And finally, purely for political gain, when by using their rules, he takes his money out he is attacked because is doing a bad thing.

It is no wonder the congress leads the way in negative ratings. The really sad thing is we keep sending these cheats, liars and thieves back to Congress so they can keep doing it to us. That really says lots about the electorate!

If you wrote this in a book it would would be called fiction but in reality it is a horror story and we are all the victims.

He paid into the system. He's getting back what he paid in. It's his money.

What he should be saying is that it's a crime that the government took his money and stuck it in an account that barely makes as much of a return as a passbook savings account when there are quite literally thousands of better investments out there.
If they'd let me, I'd take my money out of the system, too.

What about liberals who think the government isn't taxing enough and at the same time aren't sending extra money into the government?

During the 2004 election cycle, Theresa was shown to have paid south of $2,000,000. Her net worth was estimated at $1,000,000,000. If she earned 6% on her money she paid a bit over 3% in tax. This is a bit unfair since a lot of the earnings would be unrealized capital gains, but 3%, while bitching that Bush was just for the rich?

Another example is the pathetic charitable giving by the leading lights of liberalism. Kerry wrote off $92 in 1992. Who would even keep track of something that small? Gore, until recently gave similarly paltry sums. Compare their charitable giving to Bush and Cheney.

One last thing. Why do so many of these champions of public school send their kids to private school?

OK, that wasn't the last thing. Why does Gore live in an energy sucking mansion and the hated George Bush live in a 4,000 sq. ft. house with active and passive solar systems, grey water treatment, etc. on a couple square miles of open land?

I don't consider this hypocrisy, no matter who is doing it.

What’s more, so far as I’m aware, McCain doesn’t oppose Social Security at all. He merely thinks the current funding system is broken.

I admit that it is often difficult to understand McCain's position on things since he is not the clearest thinker in the world, but he has said on multiple occasions that he thinks social security is "unfair" and a "disgrace" because entitlements are paid from receipts generated by current earners.

As CK said, the system of paying out entitlements using current receipts has been the basis of the program since its inception.

When McCain calls this structure of financing a "disgrace" or "unfair" he is not questioning how to make the financing work--he is saying that he opposes underlying system itself.

There is really no other conclusion that one can make than he opposes social security.

I agree that the criticism of his cashing his social security checks is lame--but McCain's position is pretty clear: he opposes Social Security.

McCain doesn’t oppose Social Security at all. He merely thinks the current funding system is broken.

I don't understand this pair of sentences. The "current" funding system is the only one that has ever existed. Indeed, Social Security is its funding system - there isn't anything to the program other than that.