I submitted the following to Pres. Obama via the contact form at Contact the White House
Social Security is the most successful and well funded program in the history of this nation. It is sacrosanct. There will be no upping of retirement age. There will be no lowering of benefits. Even cutting the tax towards social security in recent legislation was a stupid mistake.
If President Obama yields to this madness and attacks these programs, I will work for any Democratic candidate willing to oppose him for this in the upcoming primaries for 2010 election.
Social Security is NOT AN ENTITLEMENT. It is a SAVINGS PROGRAM, funded by taxes I have paid for the past 50 years since I was a teenager. I am retiring next month. Both Social Security and Medicare are benefit programs for which Americans pay taxes their whole lives.
The vast majority of Americans want to do the right and rational thing: pay social security taxes above $180,000 ceiling. A minimal raise in deductions solidifies these programs FOREVER.
And a retirement with income to pay for healthcare and medicine and a place to live safely is not a lot to ask for from a government that cares about the 90% of its citizens as they age.
These programs WILL NOT BE PRIVATIZED and destroyed by the bankers and hedge fund managers as our economy has been, with NO CONSEQUENCES or regulation to address their crimes, I might add. They are stable and solid because they are controlled by the government to INSURE THEIR STABILITY. Putting them in the hands of free market criminals is a non-starter.
I will quote now from Bob Herbert’s column today in the NYTimes:
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities tells us that close to 90 percent of people 65 and older get at least some of their family income from Social Security. For more than half of the elderly, it provides the majority of their income. For many, it is the only income they have.
When you see surveillance videos of some creep mugging an elderly person in an elevator or apartment lobby, the universal reaction is outrage. But when the fat cats and the ideologues want to hack away at the lifeline of Social Security, they are treated somehow as respectable, even enlightened members of the society.
We need a reality check. Attacking Social Security is both cruel and unnecessary. It needs to stop.
