McCain = Same as Bush…Or Worse
McCain Embraces Disastrous Bush Proposal to Privatize Social Security
Americans United for the Change, the group best known for leading the successful campaign to beat back President Bush's effort to privatize Social Security in 2005, released the following statement today in response to Senator John McCain's support for privatizing Social Security as outlined in today's wall Street Journal.
"On one of the most important issues of the day -- the future of Social Security -- yet again Senator McCain is a carbon copy of President Bush. On the war in Iraq, on tax cuts for corporate America and the well-heeled and now on Social Security, Senator McCain is as bad as Bush or worse," said Jeremy Funk, spokesman for Americans United for Change. "That McCain's embracing of Bush's failed proposal to privatize Social Security comes as the result of a flip-flop from a plan promoted on his own website which eschews privatization in favor of add-on accounts that don't threaten guaranteed benefits, shows just how far McCain is willing to go to appease the far right wing which has had their knives out for Social Security since its inception. Now, the former ‘maverick' is simply hewing to the Bush-Conservative plan on Social Security that would slash guaranteed benefits and explode the national debt."
Asked about the apparent change in position in the interview, Sen. McCain said he hadn't made one. "I'm totally in favor of personal savings accounts," he says. When reminded that his Web site says something different, he says he will change the Web site. (As of Sunday night, he hadn't.) "As part of Social Security reform, I believe that private savings accounts are a part of it -- along the lines that President Bush proposed." [Wall Street Journal, 3/3/08]
"Senator McCain is advocating for a failed and discredited policy which would turn Social Security from a guarantee into a gamble while slashing benefits for seniors, the disabled and survivors," continued Funk. "In addition, Senator McCain has promoted himself as a man of fiscal discipline and rectitude, yet the transition cost to private accounts would explode the national debt by at least one trillion dollars while doing nothing to address the long-term solvency of Social Security. In his rush to embrace conservatives and their draconian ideology, Senator McCain has attached himself to perhaps the most unpopular and discredited domestic policy proposal in a generation. As Bush did in 2005, McCain will live to regret messing with the third rail of American politics."