President Obama: ‘Medicare and Social Security Are Not Handouts’

[ProSense]

President Obama: ‘Medicare and Social Security Are Not Handouts’

Speaking by sattelite at the AARP's annual conference on Friday, President Obama took a subtle jab at Mitt Romney's claim that 47 percent of Americans were "victims" who saw themselves as "entitled" to food, housing, and health care, among other things.

"There's been a lot of talk about Medicare and Social Security in this campaign, as there should be," Obama said. "And these are bedrock commitments that Americas makes to its seniors, and I consider those commitments unshakable. But, given the conversations that have been out there in the political arena lately, I want to emphasize, Medicare and Social Security are not handouts. You've paid into these programs your whole lives. You've earned them."

Obama suggested that Social Security's finances could be "put on more stable footing" in part by raising the cap on taxable income. He dismissed as flatly "not true attacks from Romney on $716 billion in Medicare savings included in the Affordable Care Act (and Paul Ryan's budgets), saying that it "strengthened" the program.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/president-obama-medicare-social-security-are-not-handouts

[coalition_unwilling]

1. Someone needs to explain to me why Romney is polling higher than 10% in

any poll. What is wrong with people? Are they that stupid?

[nichomachus]

3. No, brainwashed

In case you haven't noticed, Fox News is on everywhere -- doctor's office, car dealer, bars, restaurants, etc. And there are people who watch it at home non-stop. It's carefully orchestrated lies and propaganda -- and very effective.

I had to sit -- for only a few minutes, fortunately -- in a doctor's waiting room. Along with me were four or five elderly people and, from their dress, they didn't appear to be one percenters, far from it.

Fox was on, of course, and the subject was the Romney video.

The opinion of the other people in the room:

1. The only reason the liberal media is talking about this silly tape is because Obama's incompetence has the world in flames and they're trying to take attention off of that.

2. The liberals want Romney to apologize for the video. Why should he? Everything he said was true.

3. If we don't get Obama out of office, things are going to be terrible for our children and grandchildren. His goal is to destroy the country.

4. And the icing on the cake -- one woman informed the room that Romney was a "good and honest man," unlike Obama. He didn't come from privilege like Obama did. Romney inherited millions and millions of dollars from his father, but he gave it all to the poor and started over again with nothing. She heard that in a special on Fox.

[broiles]

7. Ask to have the channel changed.

When I'm confronted by fox in a public place I ask someone in charged if they would change to something else. It works all the time if I ask nicely.

[nichomachus]

11. Yeah, but then

they just switch to something like MSNBC. So, it doesn't do any good.

My ophthalmologist has a large screen TV, on which they show a slide show of pretty nature scenes and play very soothing music. I love that. More places should do it.

[Grammy23]

13. Even at the post office!

I went to the PO one day for stamps and to ship a package and the TV up on the wall was set to Fox. Everyone in that line (and it was a lengthy line) was a captive audience. You could NOT escape it since it was pointed directly at us and the sound was up to the point where you literally would have had to be deaf to miss it. What I noticed was how many people that were standing there shifting from foot to foot were staring up at the darn thing. Almost like they were mesmerized. And I guess they probably were.

I have tried from time to time to tune in to Fox .... just for "educational purposes", of course. The problem for me is that I listen to other networks most of the time and I also happen to read. OH and one other thing......I can think critically. That is the antidote to FOX News and they know it. So they do not in any way challenge people to THINK for themselves. Plus, they distort, twist and mangle the facts so much that unless you do a lot of fact checking or switch up which network you watch, you can be fed a steady diet of lies and half-truths. And they present it in such a convincing manner that the average person watching it never realizes that they are being fed propaganda. Long story, short, I can't stomach watching them because the lies and half truths just won't sink in and in fact, make me nauseous. And my Blood Pressure doesn't do well either. So I have to get away from there fast!

The reason that Fox is dangerous is because they come into people's living room and pose as friendly, helpful "news people" who are there to tell you the REAL truth. They imply strongly that other sources can't be trusted. ONLY they will tell you the real truth. And sadly, there are way too many people in this country who are willing to believe that. Combine that with racist attitudes that are fed more racist propaganda, scare tactics and some light hearted stuff that they mix in and they come across as your true friend, trustworthy and steadfast. All lies, of course, but packaged the way they do it, folks buy what they are selling.

[bluestate10]

15. That dynamic baffles me.

If republicans take unchallenged control of government, the US Postal Service is gone and the great majority of it's workers won't get hired by the companies that take the Postal Service's place. My sense on union members that vote republican, 30% of most unions and a significantly higher percentage among cops and firefighters, is that those republican voting union people are secure in knowing they can cast their often single issue votes and have the rest of union members and other people in the country bail them out. I would love to see republican voting union members get what is due them, but the mere thought of what that means to other union people and the country makes me not want to go there. The shame is that the republican voting union people know that thoughtful people will nt stand by and let the Rep voting union people and the republican party destroy workers and the nation, hence those republican voting union people continue their self serving, stupid ways.

[HubertHeaver]

8. People really are that stupid (read racist).

[hamsterjill]

12. They are!

I've just been in a Facebook war with a person who is too stupid to even understand the simplest of facts. He thinks I am "jealous" of Romney because he is rich. Those were his words.

I just want the rich assholes to pay at least the same percentage of income tax that *I* have to pay. And I simply cannot understand how any living, breathing American would not agree with that.

[Spider Jerusalem]

16. The answer to that is that yes, some of them in fact are

quite a lot of them, in fact, are that stupid. (See: the IQ distribution bell curve.) And politics is not just about facts and reality; for a lot of people, politics is a tribal thing; they have similar politics to their parents, their friends, their communities. And for a lot of people politics isn't about "voting in my best social and economic interests"; it's about other things. Culture, for instance; the cultural difference of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity means that a lot of rural poor whites will vote Republican no matter what because while it may not be in their economic interests that's not what motivates them.

And racism means that a lot of those same rural poor whites will vote Republican because talk of "welfare cheats" and "freeloaders" and "keeping more of YOUR tax dollars" is all code-words, they can't come right out and say "niggers and wetbacks" but they MEAN it, and that's how it's received and understood by these people. So you have people who are not very educated, not very intelligent, and, I'd argue, probably for the most part racist--even if they aren't really consciously aware of it, even if they'd swear blind that no, they aren't racists, it's still there; subliminally, subconsciously, with their talk about "those people" and "illegals" and the abstractions of "my tax dollars" and "welfare cheats" and so forth and so on, nothing so overt as your 1960's hood-wearing Klansman, though. A lot of these are also the same people who advance the birther argument against Obama. A little insight into understanding these people: in 1980, the US population was 83% non-Hispanic white. Today, that figure is 63%. That's a massive demographic shift in a generation. Probably the largest single demographic shift to have occurred in peacetime, in the absence of invasion or genocide, anywhere in history. You have all these not-so-smart rural white voters seeing themselves becoming a minority...and it fucking terrifies them. They're scared and angry. And their politics, and the ugly nativist and misogynist undertones, reflect that (what do you think the whole anti-abortion, anti-birth control thing is about? "we need women to have more of the right kind of babies...white ones", is what that's about).

And that's why Romney is polling higher than 10%.

[malaise]

2. Thank you President Obama

Rec

[freshwest]

4. +1

[tokenlib]

5. Thanks Mr. President! Raise the CAP and take Soc Sec off "the table"!!

[woo me with science]

18. We need a clear promise that the chained CPI is off the table.

We need a clear vow that there will be neither cuts to nor slowing of Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits, by direct or indirect means. Promising not to change Social Security is not enough, because backers of the despicable chained CPI often defend it by pointing out that it does not change the Social Security PROGRAM. However, it lowers projected benefits indirectly by changing the numbers that are plugged into the program.

The President backed a chained CPI as recently as last summer. He needs to rule it out now.

This is the time for the President to be specific and make it clear that Romney is the ONLY candidate running who will attack these desperately needed safety nets.

No Grand Bargain on the table, ever again.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. And keep repeating this!!

People PAID into SS & Medicare. They are NOT "free".

[Arkana]

9. Good.

Push back on this stupid idea that social programs are "handouts".

I hope Campaign Obama ties President Obama up and puts him in a closet for the next four years, because Campaign Obama is much less afraid of taking what he wants than President Obama is.

[bluestate10]

17. President Obama is running his last election.

President Obama will be free to do more over the next four years, he just needs a House that takes it's job seriously, something that won't happen with republicans in control. Our job is to give the President a hand. Re-elect President Obama and give President Obama a professional House of Representatives to work with. The well being of the nation depend on people like us, lets show some discipline and backbone and get democrats into every office that we can.

[Vincardog]

10. Eliminate the cap and lower the retirement age. Let grown ups retire and give young uns a job.

[Grammy23]

14. Apparently there are some fairly simple solutions for Social Security---

but the Republicans will never hear of us having a sane, rational discussion about the solutions. One that we've been told about is simply raising the cap, which has been done before and could be done again. The Republicans really want to destroy SS, but they keep insisting that they want to SAVE IT. That is the term they use over and over. And folks fall for it. It's the reason why Paul Ryan can get cheers and people waving banners at his rallies. He soothes them by insisting that he won't do anything to hurt seniors......like his MOM. What better prop could you have at a rally besides your sainted Mother???? So people trust him. (GAG!!)

What they fail to realize is that his mother is not like most seniors. She has a son (Paul Ryan) who is fully capable of picking up the cost if she has a need that her social security won't cover. Same with her Medicare. And I'm fairly confident that she has other resources that would make her a bit different than the average senior living on Social Security.

Ryan's mother is just more window dressing to distract you from the fact that in the long run, the Republicans have NO INTENTION of saving Social Security. NONE. But they will try to scare you into believing that it is a failing program and that THEY are the ones who can "save it". And they won't hesitate to use whatever they can to convince you of that, even their own mothers.

We can't let them distract us from the simple truths: Fixing social security is NOT as hard as they claim and NO, we do not have to completely revamp it to save it.