9-17-08, 11:03 am

In the same week that the US stock market has crashed hundreds of points due to the failure of two major US banks, the Obama campaign took time to point out the flaw in John McCain's Social Security privatization scheme and to discuss how to strengthen Social Security without harming retirees and younger workers.

Speaking on a conference call from Florida on Tuesday, Sept. 16th, Obama surrogate Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) highlighted McCain's distance from working families and retirees by pointing out that McCain, for the 16th time in this campaign, told a smaller-than-expected Jacksonville audience that the 'fundamentals of our economy are strong.'

Florida's unemployment is greater than six percent with the largest job loss in the country over the last year. Floridians are facing record foreclosure and ballooning home insurance rates.

'And what John McCain proposes for Social Security is to in effect put our Social Security in the same stock market that lost 500 points yesterday [Sept. 15th],' Wexler said.

McCain is offering a 'risky' plan to 'gamble away our Social Security,' Wexler added. McCain's offers essentially the same plan as George W. Bush's failed 2005 plan, which McCain voted for in the Senate.

In sharp contrast with McCain, Barack Obama has always opposed privatization, Wexler added. In addition, Barack Obama proposes to eliminate income taxes for seniors who earn less than $50,000 per year, while McCain offers no economic relief for seniors.

Wexler focused the issue on his home state of Florida. The state, he said, has 3.5 million residents who are Social Security beneficiaries, 2.5 million of whom are over 65.

'So the issue of Social Security, whether or not to privatize it, whether or not to risk Social Security in terms of investing in a stock market that is fluctuating in an extremely dramatic fashion, is extremely important to our state,' Wexler said.

Wexler said that Obama's plan for Social Security rejects cutting benefits, raising the retirement age, and privatizing it – all of which McCain wants.

Instead, Barack Obama calls for a partial lift of the cap on the program for people who make over $250,000 per year. His plan would lift the payroll tax on the highest wage earners by between two and four percent, to be shared by the employers and employees.

'Partially lifting the cap on the highest income earners, only above $250,000, would go a long way to shore up the long-term financial stability of Social Security,' Wexler pointed out.

Wexler added that McCain's proposal to privatize Social Security, by investing money in the volatile stock market, would add trillions to the national debt, because benefits would have to be paid out of the general fund, rather than with new contributions from workers.

Obama's plan to lift the Social Security cap is also in keeping with his pledge to not raise taxes on 95 percent of all working families earning $250,000 a year or less. His proposal to eliminate taxes for seniors earning under $50,000 is also in line with his tax relief plan for 101 million middle-class households, who would see an average of at least $1,000 in tax breaks under an Obama administration.

--Reach Joel Wendland at