McCain's Push to Privatize Social Security Meets His De-Regulatory Agenda, Americans Suffer the Costs

While Markets Reel From Disastrous Bush Economic Policies, McCain Wants to Gamble with Americans' Future on Wall Street

This week's upheaval on Wall Street is yet another dramatic reminder of the risk the Bush-McCain plan to privatize Social Security poses to America's seniors and the economic security of our families. While the plan was defeated in 2005, Senator McCain wants to privatize Social Security, and put Americans' economic security in corporate hands subject to the kind of volatility in the market we've seen this week, jeopardizing the well-being of those most affected by failed Bush-McCain economic policies, seniors.

"This week has been a sobering reminder of just how dangerous McCain's plan to privatize Social Security is for Alaskans and all Americans," said Patti Higgins, chair of the Alaska Democratic Party. "The price of everything from gas to groceries is sky-rocketing, the cost of health care is soaring, and paychecks don't go as far as they used to. In the face of this economic insecurity, John McCain wants to risk our money and our retirement in the stock market just as he worked to remove the protections on Wall Street that led to this week's crisis. Nothing could more clearly illustrate how McCain's re-warmed Bush plan for privatization leaves Alaskans at risk when they can least afford it."

For more than 70 years, Social Security has helped keep retirees, surviving spouses and children and the disabled from poverty, yet McCain called Social Security "a disgrace" and wants to revive Bush's risky scheme to privatize Social Security, even as the failure of two of the top four remaining investment banks this Monday makes clear just how great a gamble privatizing Social Security would be. As all Americans are struggling economically, McCain would jeopardize the economic security of those Americans most affected by the failed Bush-McCain economy.

The Bush-McCain Social Security privatization scheme would blow a hole in the federal budget and end Social Security as Americans know it. Bush and McCain's gamble on Social Security would cost $1 trillion just initially, just to transition to private accounts. Their plan would endanger guaranteed benefits even as the economy continues to deteriorate, with job losses mounting and the cost of living, from groceries and energy to health care, spiraling out of control.

McCain has a long and unmistakable record of not just supporting but cheerleading privatization. In 2004, McCain claimed that Social Security could not be preserved for younger generations "without privatization." In 2005, McCain stumped with Bush in a failed attempt to sell their risky Social Security privatization scheme. In 2005 Americans rendered their judgment on the Bush-McCain plan to privatize Social Security - they said no. But now McCain's back with more of the same, even as the turmoil on Wall Street exposes just how risky his proposal would be for the millions of Americans who depend on or will depend on Social Security.

From a Alaska Democratic Party press release

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