PolitiFact: Rubio's Social Security Ideas More Nuanced Than Crist Lets On

Campaign watchers have long been waiting for Gov. Charlie Crist to attack Republican Marco Rubio on Social Security. Crist has done that in a new ad, but he’s only telling half the story, according to PolitiFact Florida’s fact-checkers.

The Crist ad claims that Rubio wants to increase the retirement age for Social Security and cut benefits, but PolitiFact Florida editor John Bartosek said Rubio’s position is more nuanced.

“The point that Marco Rubio has made consistently throughout the campaign is that the changes he’s talking about with Social Security would not affect current retirees,” Bartosek said. “Nor would it affect those of us who are over age 55 and are within a 10-year window of Social Security eligibility.”

Rubio has said in multiple interviews that increasing the retirement age must be an option to make Social Security solvent beyond 2037, when the Social Security trust fund runs out of money. PolitiFact noted Rubio has also said that changes need to be made in the way cost-of-living adjustments are made for beneficiaries, which would amount to a reduction in benefits.

“He does not want to change the benefit levels for current retirees, and that’s the critical difference,” Bartosek said. “That’s why we rated this ad as Half True.”

(Click here to read PolitiFact’s rulings from the Oct. 6 debate between Senate candidates.)

Another ruling this week caught Republican Rick Scott’s gubernatorial campaign telling only part of the story.

A new ad claims that his Democratic opponent, Alex Sink, “funneled three-quarters of a million dollars in no-bid contracts to Bank of America.” PolitiFact ruled that statement was Barely True on the Truth-o-Meter.

“Rick Scott is singling out a $300 million bond issue, [and] on that particular bond issue, there were no bids,” Bartosek said.

He said the important part here is that the State Board of Administration approved a “negotiated sale” for the bonds in question because the bond market was weak at the time and money managers hoped to attract more interest.

“This actually took place back in the end of 2008 when the bond market was going through a very rough patch, and it was very difficult for states, as well as companies and others, to raise money in the bond market,” Bartosek said.

“The state really needed to make some different approaches to these sales and this negotiated sale is what they came up with,” he said.

In a negotiated sale, potential buyers do not compete to offer the lowest interest rates. Rather, the state chooses an underwriter to buy the bonds, and the underwriter then re-sells the bonds to individual investors.

So what about the idea that Sink “funneled” money to Bank of America, her former employer?

For the bond sale in question, Merrill Lynch collected most of the fees -- $739,773 – while Bank of America collected $30,548. But since Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch, the combined total was $770,321, right at the three-quarters of a million the Scott ad claims.

But the SBA approved using either a negotiated or competitive process, Bartosek said, so board members (including Sink) did not know which companies would ultimately buy the bonds or collect fees for re-selling them.

“’Funneling’ I think gives a connotation that she knew both where the money was going and was directly responsible for getting it there, and we don’t agree with that,” Bartosek said.

“Alex Sink is one of several members on the State Board of Administration – Gov. Crist is on the board, as is Attorney General Bill McCollum – and they all voted to allow a different process for bond sales.”

Click here to read more of PolitiFact’s ruling on the Crist ad.
Click here to read more of PolitiFact’s ruling on the Scott ad.