Congressional candidate Aaron Woolf, a Democrat, says his Republican opponent can’t be trusted after she refused to answer questions regarding Social Security and Medicare requirements.

The attack comes after GOP candidate Elise Stefanik walked away instead of answering reporters’ questions on establishing a retirement age at her press conference yesterday.

A video of the incident can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKjQcD1URYE.

“Upstate New York voters can’t trust Elise Stefanik and her inconsistent and dangerous plans for Social Security and Medicare,” said Aaron Woolf’s spokesman, Yianni Varonis, after WNYT-tv in Albany also reported that Stefanik didn’t go inside to visit residents.

“She keeps hiding from the fact that she was a lead author of the 2012 Republican platform that called for the privatization of Social Security and Medicare. She still refuses to say whether or not she supports her friend Paul Ryan’s plan to end the Medicare guarantee, even though it was her job to defend it. Now she wants to raise the retirement age. And she supports using chained CPI which would immediately cut Social Security benefits for today’s seniors.”

Despite his criticisms of Stefanik, Woolf’s press release was light on policy details. It focused instead on his opponent.

The release said “Woolf remains committed to fighting for and protecting Social Security. Stefanik, on the other hand, has played a key role in attacking Social Security.”

The release says Stefanik was policy director of the 2012 Republican National Convention Platform Committee that called for the privatization of Social Security.”

“She then refused to say that she wouldn’t support privatizing Social Security in Congress, instead, using words like ‘modernize’ to avoid having to say on the record that she supports privatizing Social Security,” the release says.

In New York’s 21st Congressional District, there are 161,101 Social Security beneficiaries, the release said. Of those beneficiaries, 107,279 are seniors.

In total, NY-21 constituents receive benefits totaling $189 million per month.