Hillary Clinton Reacts to Sen. McCain’s Support for Social Security Privatization & His Housing Speech

The following are excerpts from a press availability that Hillary Clinton held at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg earlier this afternoon:

“…Social Security is a big issue in this campaign. There are differences between myself and Senator Obama and there are very big differences between myself and John McCain. And I have to admit to being somewhat surprised when I saw that Senator McCain had said that he would try to continue to try to privatize Social Security along the lines of what President Bush tried and failed in doing in 2005. That is a very significant difference between the two of us.”…

“…Pennsylvania as you know has a higher percentage of older people than most states so it is a particular concern to a lot of Pennsylvanians who are on Social Security, like a couple we heard from earlier today who keep seeing their expenses increase and realize that they are in a very difficult position trying to afford all of the necessities of life and being on a fixed income like they are. That’s why it’s so important that we are doing everything we can to meet the long term challenges of Social Security. The Social Security trustees just issued a report, actually while I was speaking, and there has been some improvement in the outlook for Social Security according to some, to the Social Security trustees. So I think that it reinforces what I have said for a long time, which is we have some long term challenges. It is not a crisis. We can fix what’s needing to be changed in Social Security. Our real challenge is Medicare which is much more in crisis and deserves closer attention.”…

The following is Clinton’s response to Sen. McCain’s comments on the housing crisis.
“It sounds remarkably like Herbert Hoover and I don’t think that’s a good economic policy. We have a framework of regulation, it needs to be updated and modernized. The government has a number of tools at its disposal that are well-suited for just this situation. I think that inaction has contributed to the problems we face today and I believe further inaction would exacerbate those problems. I’ve laid out what I would do. I don’t think it’s an adequate response to say the government shouldn’t be helping either banks or people because I think that would be a downward spiral that would cause tremendous economic pain and loss in our country and I don’t see why we should wait by for that to happen.”