John McCain, in March 2008:
I'm totally in favor of personal savings accounts .... I campaigned in support of President Bush's proposal and I campaigned with him, and I did town hall meetings with him.
The big argument in support of the corporate-sponsored Bush/McCain privatization plan was that future retirees would get a greater rate of return on the stock market than with the guaranteed government securities in which the Trust Funds are currently invested (which returned 5.25% in 2007).
Stocks are now down 25% since October 2007.
So the question for John McCain and the Republicans is simple:
Do you still want to privatize Social Security?
And lest John McCain try to explain away his vigorous support of privatization in March 2008, he's been as consistently wrong on this issue as he's been with his "fundamentally strong" comments about the economy.
Here he is a year earlier, in March 2007, with the same enthusiasm (if not complete comprehension):
I favor strongly retirement savings accounts, personal savings accounts, whatever you want to call them.
Democrats have a different record:
Democrats created Social Security after the Republicans led us into the Great Depression.
Democrats saved Social Security from the Bush/McCain privatization scheme before the modern Republican recession.
And Democrats join with all Americans in giving thanks today that Social Security is not invested in the volatile stock market, but instead, in secure, guaranteed accounts backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government and earning a steady rate of return.