Fact Checking Lieberman

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Matt Stoller :

The most significant lies were his assertions that he stood strong against Social Security from the first day Bush proposed privatization, and that he doesn’t support an open-ended commitment in Iraq (he does in fact supports permanent military bases).

February 18, 2005:

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., is undecided about the concept of using payroll taxes to fund private Social Security accounts, bringing to three the known number of Senate Democrats who have yet to publicly rule out the idea. President Bush has made the accounts the centerpiece of his domestic agenda. But other than Rep. Allen Boyd of Florida, no congressional Democrats have formally signed on. While Lieberman has concerns about the idea, he is continuing to study it while hoping for more details on Social Security from the president, a Lieberman aide said today. "He’s still in a listening and learning stage and is keeping an open mind, but he does have concerns about private accounts as carve-outs that would potentially undermine the guaranteed minimum benefit and worsen our fiscal health and debt load," a Lieberman aide said today.

Lieberman, 4/20/03:

"We may, over the long term, with the consent of the new Iraqi government, establish some permanent bases in Iraq. And wouldn’t that be a dramatic change, where we have an allied government there in Iraq, at the center of the Middle East, where we may have not a permanent police presence, but one or another military base that’s working in cooperation with the government there?"]