Yesterday, we brought you this video of Fleming speaking to seniors about Social Security on October 1st:
Well, apparently Mr. Fleming either flipped his position, or he's lying to the voters of LA-04, because he's running this ad in which he states that he will work to, wait for it ... "keep social security out of the stock market":
Republican candidate John Fleming announces that he is in favor of privatizing Social Security:
I find his position incredible, especially since Social Security disability payments and survivor's benefits saved his family when he was a high school senior and attending college. Apparently, his mother got hurt on the job, and his dad passed away from a heart attack months before John's graduation from high school. From his bio on his website:
"Things were tough financially. It would take a while for my dad's Social Security survivor's checks to start coming and for funds from his life insurance policy to arrive. All we had was a small check from my mother's disability.
Mr. Fleming, you claim you haven't forgotten where you came from. If that is the case, why would you advocate putting Social Security benefits in the stock market? The stock market is not always rising ... matter of fact, it's dropped near 3000 points in the last two months, which has caused many people to lose a good chunk of their retirement funds that they were counting on.
Social Security is, was, and always should be a safety net for the American people. Putting it in the stock market will take away that safety net ... and put folks on a high wire ... trying to determine the best time to cash out, thereby make some folks winners and some folks losers. And no matter what, among the winners will always be banks and financial institutions that administer the mutual funds. That was never the intention of framers of Social Security ... it was intended to ensure a basic standard of living for folks after a lifetime of working.
