By ALEX GIMARC
Jim Lottsfeldt’s Vote Alaska Before Party PAC trotted out one of its latest in a set of attack ads on Nick Begich a week ago.
They worked so well that the Mary Peltola campaign picked it up and started using the attack in her ads over the weekend.
The attack vector accuses Republican congressional candidate Nick Begich of calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme and continues down that bunny trail, accusing him of wanting him to shut it down along with Medicare.
Oh, the horror. Oh, the humanity. Oh, the shock.
This line of attack by Democrats is at least half a century old, used early and often 1944 – 1984. Congratulations to Alaska Democrats for updating their campaign to reflect current issues … not.
Alaska Democrats and Peltola should know all about Ponzi schemes. The party and its top candidate benefited from the crypto Ponzi scheme of Sam Bankman-Fried, who gave the party thousands of dollars last election cycle — money that was then passed on to help Peltola win her seat in Congress. He’s now in prison, serving 25 years for the Ponzi scheme that defrauded thousands of investors.
Actually, Lottsfeldt and Peltola’s line of attack reflects little more than their personal economic illiteracy. How so? It was Democrats who created the Social Security Ponzi scheme and knew exactly what they were doing in 1944.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/americas-ponzi-scheme-why-social-security-needs-to-retire
What is a Ponzi scheme? It is an investment scheme that pays early investors with money taken from later investors. It is otherwise known as a pyramid scheme. Social Security has always relied on payroll taxes paid by people currently working to pay the benefits of retirees.
As long as more people are working than are drawing retirement, all is well. But as that number decreases, the system gets very tight. Social Security has been under economic pressure for at least half a century and as the number of people in the system increases, most recently by Harris – Biden putting a significant number of newly arrived illegals on it, the more economic pressure it is under. What happens when the benefits to be paid are greater than the income from payroll taxes?
Begich at least recognizes the problem. Lottsfeldt and his fellow travelers in economic illiteracy, like Mary Peltola, do not. Nor do they care.
The Rule of Holes states that when you find yourself in one, the first thing to do is to quit digging. Begich recognizes the hole. Lottsfeldt and Peltola don’t. It’s very difficult to solve a problem you don’t even acknowledge exists.
In a way, I suppose I would feel sorry for Peltola, whose campaign built on Fish, Family and Freedom for the Future appears to be falling flat despite being pumped up by millions of Outside money (something the 2020 ranked-choice voting ballot measure was supposed to stop, but that’s another story).
King salmon runs statewide are crashing, and Russian trawl fleets continue to rake the ocean, in spite of Peltola’s pronouncements.
And it’s tough to be interested in “family” when Peltola’s dark money supporters and the Harris – Biden regime she is supporting is busily shutting down all resource development in the state from Cook Inlet to the Arctic Ocean. No jobs for families under Harris-Biden.
Finally, Peltola is not smart enough to realize that the Supreme Court ruling of Dobbs simply moved the entire abortion decision back to the states. Congress critters don’t play there anymore.
By the way, Mary, what is the Yup’ik word for abortion?
Right. There isn’t one.
So, all Peltola has left is to try to dust off a half century old Democrat smear. Is she really that badly out of airspeed and ideas? At least she still has millions available to run ads demonstrating that she is a smiling idiot with little to no realization of simple economic issues facing all of us, issues she promises to solve should she be reelected.
Nick Begich at least realizes there is a problem, which is the first step to solving it. Peltola, not so much, which makes our election day choice for Congress critter from Alaska pretty easy.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
Do your fact checking on the political ads on bothe candidates before voting fact checking is very important
Well, Social Security IS a Ponzi scheme.
Great article, thanks Alex. Mary Peltola is the queen of BS. She can’t make it to more than half of congressional roll calls because she is attending DC parties and husband hunting
……..full time. But to hear her political ads, one would think Peltola is a full-time advocate for Alaska. She IS the Alaska BS queen.
Nick Begich is the remedy.