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DAYTONA BEACH, Florida : Democrat Barack Obama accused his White House foe John McCain Saturday of wanting to "gamble" away Americans' life savings by privatizing Social Security at a time of crisis on the markets.
Neither of the campaigns had any immediate response to news reports that the US government wants permission from Congress to buy 700 billion dollars in troubled mortgages, according to a draft rescue plan for Wall Street.
But Obama renewed his demand that any government bailout must protect ordinary Americans on "Main Street," as well as the busted financiers of New York, through another round of stimulus spending.
McCain meanwhile pursued a new line of attack in blaming the financial hurricane on fraud at US mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are among the tottering companies now taken over by the government.
By extension, according to McCain, Obama is to blame as he was a leading recipient in Congress of campaign donations from the two companies and "did nothing" to sound the alarm about their "festering problems."
"While Fannie and Freddie were working to keep Congress away from their house of cards, Senator Obama was taking their money," the Arizona senator said in his weekly radio address.
"The crisis on Wall Street started in the Washington culture of lobbying and influence-peddling, and he was square in the middle of it," he said.
But at a rally here in the retirement haven of Florida, a battleground state that decided the 2000 election, Obama noted McCain's life-long belief in market deregulation before the Republican switched tack this week.
He observed that in the current issue of "Contingencies," the journal of the American Academy of Actuaries, McCain touts his plan to fix the US health care crisis by injecting a dose of Wall Street competition into insurance.
"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation," McCain wrote.
Obama said: "So let me get this straight -- he wants to run health care like they've been running Wall Street. Well, senator, I know some folks on Main Street who aren't going to think that's such a good idea.
"There's only one candidate whose campaign is being run by seven of Washington's most powerful lobbyists. And folks, it isn't me," he added.
"And I'll protect Social Security, while John McCain wants to privatize it," he said at the rally, which was devoted to issues of particular concern to women as Obama pushes back against McCain's running mate Sarah Palin.
"Without Social Security half of elderly women would be living in poverty -- half. But if my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would've had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week.
"Millions would've watched as the market tumbled and their nest egg disappeared before their eyes," Obama said.
"So I know Senator McCain is talking about a 'casino culture' on Wall Street -- but the fact is, he's the one who wants to gamble with your life savings. And that is not going to happen when I'm president of the United States."
The McCain campaign denies the Republican would "privatize" America's Great Depression-era retirement benefits.
But McCain agrees with President George W. Bush's argument that the system is going broke, and would permit citizens to have the choice of investing their pensions in "safe" vehicles such as bonds.
"John McCain is 100-percent committed to preserving Social Security benefits for seniors, and Barack Obama knows it," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement.
"This is a desperate attempt to gain political advantage using scare tactics and deceit... Barack Obama has proven he will say and do anything to put his superficial ambitions over the real challenges Americans are facing," he said.
Bush has already failed in his bid to enact private Social Security accounts owing to widespread opposition -- not least in balmy Florida, which has roughly 4.5 million people aged 60 and over.
- AFP /ls
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