The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, which has endorsed U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz over U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, has sent a mailer to Hawaii residents that implies Hanabusa might privatize the entitlement programs.
The mailer, while not overtly tied to the Democratic primary, dovetails with the endorsement and with Schatz’s campaign theme that he would better protect the programs from cuts or attempts at privatization. Hanabusa has accused Schatz of scaring seniors with alarmist rhetoric at a time when reductions to the programs have waned as a deficit-reduction option.
On the envelope for the mailer, the seniors group urges residents to sign an enclosed letter to Hanabusa and "help stop the most dangerous threat to Social Security and Medicare we have ever faced." Inside, Max Richtman, the group’s president and chief executive officer, has a six-page fundraising missive that mentions Hanabusa in the context of the battle over privatization but does not say outright that she would privatize the programs.
"I don’t want to sound like an alarmist," Richtman wrote. "But I must tell you, if we are not successful, these programs could be literally destroyed."
In May, when the seniors group endorsed Schatz, Richtman said the important differences between the two Democrats were that Schatz has co-sponsored a bill that would expand Social Security benefits and that Hanabusa had voted for an unsuccessful House amendment in 2013 that would have urged President Barack Obama to use the Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction plan as a model.
The Simpson-Bowles plan included a mix of tax and entitlement program reforms. Hanabusa has said that she did not support any reductions to Social Security.
"Our kupuna should not contribute a single cent of their hard earned income to this organization because Colleen has never considered privatizing Social Security and never will," Peter Boylan, a spokesman for the Hanabusa campaign, said in an email. "It is a sad day in Hawaii when a mainland group supporting Brian Schatz is scaring our seniors while asking for their money. Colleen is on the right side of this issue and always has been. This same group supported Colleen in 2012 and contributed to her campaign. Nothing has changed."
Boylan noted that Schatz voted for the Bipartisan Budget Act, which extended cuts to Medicare providers for an additional two years. "The truth is that she’s voted time and again to protect Social Security, Medicare and our kupuna," he said.
