ORTLAND, Ore. - Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush used a White House videotape yesterday to illustrate Democratic rival Al Gore's flip-flop on partial privatization of the Social Security system.
The tape, shot at a Jan. 27, 1999, briefing on the future of the retirement program, shows the vice president voicing strong support for a reform Bush proposed Monday - investing some of the 12.4 percent payroll taxes paid by employees and workers in the stock market.
''During this whole national discussion, one of the single most important, salient facts that jumped out at everybody is that, over any 10-year period in American history, returns on equities are just significantly higher than these other returns,'' Gore says.
''And in order to capture some part of that economic advantage, surely there is a way to solve these problems. And the people who have spent time on it are just totally convinced that it can be solved pretty easily,'' he adds.
Under Bush's controversial plan to save Social Security from financial ruin, individual workers would be able to divert part of the 12.4 percent payroll tax paid by employees and employers into privately controlled investment accounts. He did not specify the amount, but his campaign aides have used one-sixth as a hypothetical number.
Gore immediately denounced the Texas governor's proposal as an irresponsible ''game of stock market roulette'' that would drain funds from Social Security, place retirement incomes of working Americans at risk, and threaten the booming economy.
In an interview with the Washington Post recently, Gore also denied the Clinton administration had ever proposed partially privatizing Social Security, which it did twice before dropping the idea last month citing lack of support in Congress.
Under the moribund Clinton plan, the federal government would have invested the funds. Bush would let individuals control their own investments through personal retirement accounts.
''He has changed his tune,'' Bush said of Gore after playing the tape at a forum on Social Security with workers and management at Gunderson Inc., a Portland company that builds railroad freight cars. ''The man has now changed his position.''
''He's now saying investing in the private sector is risky, but what was he saying on that tape?'' Bush asked.
Bush said he wanted ''a rational discussion'' about the future of Social Security before the Nov. 7 election.
