Connecticut Republican senatorial candidate Linda McMahon is still insisting that when she says she wants to sunset Social Security, she doesn't mean it, but still wants to do it. Here she is, responding to local news on the question at a community event Thursday.



REPORTER: [...] Sunset provision usually means that it ends at some point. MCMAHON: Well I am not looking to end Medicare or Social Security by any stretch of the imagination. So I think we need provisions of time that you take a relook at it. REPORTER: McMahon was at a community center in Bridgeport today and said she would be wiling to look into privatizing Medicare, possibly with a voucher system, a plan supported by Mitt Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan, and maybe raising the age for Social Security benefits, but said that she does not want to cut any budgets for those currently receiving benefits and says reform must be a bipartisan effort.

No matter how McMahon tries obfuscate this, she is calling for a sunset provision, something that Social Security has existed without for 75 years and Medicare for nearly 50 years. Sunset provisions are added when Congress wants to come back and "take a relook" at a program to consider whether or not it is still needed. Since Americans will always be retiring, and since 401(k)s and the housing market don't provide stable retirement income, these programs remain necessary.

McMahon is absolutely saying she wants to have the ability to end Social Security. And now she's adding privatizing Medicare into the mix? Raising the retirement age?

Of course, McMahon is parroting the Romney/Ryan refrain that she won't target current seniors. Interestingly enough, McMahon won't appear in public with Paul Ryan, and is ducking three fundraisers he's holding in Connecticut. She doesn't want to be associated with the losing team, but she is embracing their bad ideas.

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