Bayh comes out strong for Social Security

Evan Bayh has been acting like a presidential-candidate-in-training of late, and Josh Marshall has been tracking his words on Social Security quite closely. Bayh was recently on Stephanopoulos's show where he was asked directly about his stance... I think his reply is pretty damn good:

And, look, the president is probably going to talk a lot about ownership and individual choice. I think those are great concepts, and I can support those -- but in addition to the current Social Security system, not as a replacement for it.

Look, you may own your home; a lot of Americans do. I bet you have insurance. Ownership and insurance have to go hand in hand.

Social Security is the insurance. Senior citizens in our country can always rely on it to make sure they're not desperately poor in their old age.

Should we have ownership and choice in addition to that? Yes, we should. But we should never do anything to undermine that insurance. That is one of the bedrock principles of our country.