After 73 Years, Retirees and Families Still Need Social Security

After 73 Years, Retirees and Families Still Need Social Security

John McCain’s Privatization Plan Would Put Guarantee at Risk

Maryland Seniors Mark Anniversary at Social Security HQ

Baltimore, MD – Maryland retirees will suffer, with hundreds of thousands thrown into poverty or close to it, if John McCain carries out the George Bush plan to privatize Social Security as promised.  So says a group of retirees, advocates and union officials Thursday after as they gathered to mark the 73rd Birthday of Social Security.

“John McCain collects about $2,000 every month from a system he wants to destroy by giving our money to his wealthy friends and contributors,” said Bruce Dunton, President of the Maryland Alliance of Retired Americans. “Today we celebrate the great and solemn promise of Social Security that George Bush and John McCain want to put at risk. They can afford to take that risk. Millions of ordinary Americans who need the guarantee of Social Security to survive simply can’t afford it.”

73 years ago – in 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law saying, “We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.” 

McCain’s privatization plan would reduce guaranteed benefits and substitute a risky system that relies on the ups and downs of the stock market.  In Maryland it would mean over 100,000 retirees would be thrust into poverty with hundreds of thousand more perched perilously close according to study released by the Center for America’s Future.

“We stand before the national headquarters of the Social Security Administration to say America’s seniors will not sit out this election. We will not be silent on McCain’s Risky plans for that which keeps so many of us out of poverty,” adds Dunton. “Today we celebrate this great institution and commit our energy in this election to Barack Obama so that we may all remain secure in our golden years. Sen. Obama is one of us. He’ll do us right and ensure Social Security lives up to the promise made by Franklin Roosevelt 73 years ago today.”   

Recently, John McCain called the way Social Security works a “disgrace.”  As recently as 2005, McCain went on tour with George Bush to tout their plan for privatizing Social Security, pushing a program to divert new funds from the Social Security trust into the stock market.