If
you like Social Security, Medicare or have a pension, you should check out new video on Almonte's extremist positions
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| Ernie Almonte admits on video that he wants to privatize Social Security - actually all government pensions because he doesn't trust the government. Yet he wants you to elect him to join the government. |
Ernie Almonte, now an “independent” running for General Treasurer, started out the 2014 campaign season as a Democrat running for Governor. He was the first to announce, way back in November 2012 right after the last election.
He realized that there was no way he would win the nomination for Governor against Gina Raimondo and Angel Taveras (and later Clay Pell), so he switched to running for the Democratic nomination for General Treasurer.
He pulled the plug on that, too, when he realized he couldn’t beat Seth Magaziner and Frank Caprio, deciding instead to go the independent route, though with the informal endorsement from the RI Republican Party.
Almonte’s
biggest problem and the cause of his vacillations is that he can’t keep his own
story straight.
He
claimed to be a Democrat, but he has repeatedly mouthed Republican positions
such as mimicking Mitt Romney’s attack on the “47% of the public” whom Romney –
and Almonte – consider to be deadbeats. He attacked Social Security and
Medicare and even giving any consideration at all to raising taxes on the rich.
It’s all on videotape that is linked here
and here.
Almonte’s
TV ads tout his credentials as an auditor, which I found to be pretty bold,
given that Almonte – as Rhode Island’s Auditor General – failed to sound the alarm about our impending public pension
crisis. The first warning from the Auditor General’s office about our pension problems
came in the first audit report issued after
Almonte resigned. We count on auditors
to find problems like the one our pension funds faced, but Almonte blew it but now wants to claim credit for his experience as auditor.
At
a recorded forum about a month ago, Almonte appeared on stage with his opponent
Democrat Seth Magaziner. Seth very kindly gave Almonte an opportunity to
recant, or at least revise, the remarks Almonte had made against the American
middle-class, Medicare, Social Security and public pensions. [Continue the narrative after this video:]
At
first, it seemed as if Almonte was going to recant, saying that the remarks
were actually written for him by the US Comptroller General who asked Ernie to
take his place at a workshop and deliver the remarks. In an earlier meeting
with the political action committee of one of the state’s labor unions, Almonte
said that he was paid to make the
remarks, as if that made it all better.
In
today’s video, you can see Almonte explain where the statement came from and
see him say to Magaziner that he felt he couldn’t turn down the Comptroller
General. Seth’s very droll answer was “I
would have said NO.”
Rather
than cut his losses, Almonte decided to ditch his good old boy persona to try
to take Seth Magaziner to the wood shed. Almonte began lecturing him as if Seth
was a school boy – “Listen to what I’m
saying so you don’t get it wrong.” And Seth played right along, feeding him
straight lines.
Almonte
blew it again. He took the position that he doesn’t trust the government to
invest people’s money, despite 80 years of successful administration. Seth said
that Almonte’s attacks on Social Security were unwarranted, an “over-reaction,”
and that “minor tweaks” (such as raising the current cap on the level of income
is subject to Social Security – set too low and placing the burden on low-wage
workers).
Almonte
said that yes, “minor tweaks” could work – such as raising the retirement age.
But fundamentally, he does not trust the government, even though he is running
for a place in it. He calls this a “courageous conversations.”
Even
though Almonte tried to gloss over his earlier remarks, he just couldn’t help
himself but take a full header into the swamp. As much as he tried to pass the
blame for the anti-Social Security remarks onto the Comptroller General, he
ended up embracing privatizing Social Security. Period.
“I don’t trust
the government to make the decisions.” Instead, he offered his “vision” of
using a “financial literacy program” to
teach the elderly how to cope with a new private system where they have to
invest the money themselves “so people
don’t have to rely on the government.” If that’s not a full-throated call
for privatized Social Security, I don’t know what is.
Was
Almonte asleep during 2008 - 2009 when those private retirement accounts - 401(k)s
and IRAs - crashed and, in many cases, ended up being used to cover mortgage
payments?
Actually,
Almonte was asleep, because if you
look at the reports he issued for the state’s pension funds for those two years
(his last before he resigned to run for state office), you’ll see nary a hint
of alarm. Click here and here to read his audits and see what I’m talking about.
But
worse than that, it was Almonte’s job
in the years leading up to the market crash and Rhode Island’s subsequent
pension crisis to point out that the
state was failing to make the promised deposits into state workers’ pension
funds even though those state workers consistently paid their fair share.
Where
was RI Auditor General Almonte while all this happening? Well, then he was part
of the government apparatus that he now doesn’t trust. With his record, and his
recorded radical views on pensions, Social Security and the middle-class, he
wants us to trust him to be General Treasurer?
Here's the earlier video - that one that first showed Almonte expressing his extremist views:
Here's the earlier video - that one that first showed Almonte expressing his extremist views: