A Republican town committee member in Salisbury says she got a call last week from someone affiliated with Linda McMahon’s Senate campaign. The caller wanted to talk about Social Security — specifically, McMahon’s rival Peter Schiff’s desire to “do away” with the federal entitlement. The caller also wanted to know if the RTC member received Social Security.
Town committee chairman Chris Janelli said the call was “nothing less than scare-mongering.”
Janelli, an ethusiastic Schiff supporter, dashed off a letter to the McMahon campaign, asking it to “please refrain from using this tactic when you speak with members” of the town committee.
“It did upset one of our members,” Janelli said in a brief phone conversation this morning. “If they persist in that direction, it will drive a wedge between themselves and the RTC members around the state whom they are trying to court.’
McMahon spokesman Ed Patru did not return a phone call seeking comment.
The Salisbury RTC endorsed Schiff on March 23.
Schiff has called for big changes to the Social Security system, which is projected to pay out more in benefits than it brings in in payroll taxes this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
He has called it a “Ponzi scheme” and a “giant ticking time bomb.”
“If we don’t make real, meaningful cuts in that program right now, no one’s going to get any Social Security benefits because the money’s going to have no value,” Schiff said earlier this month.
(Watch here: the topic turns to Social Security at about the 5 minute, 20 second mark.)