My letter to Obama

[SheilaT]

Here's the draft of the letter I intend to send to President Obama. I'm open to comments and suggestions. Thanks.


Dear Mr. President:

Social Security does not add one penny to the deficit. Cutting it will not make one bit of difference in the deficit, as you well know. Currently, there is enough money to fund it fully for a couple of decades. The way to solve any coming shortfall is to raise the cap.

Perhaps you simply don’t understand what it is like for the vast majority of workers out there. Our wages have been at best stagnant for nearly forty years. For many of us, real wages have actually fallen while the price of everything has risen. Companies have callously eliminated defined benefit pensions and moved workers into 401k plans and the like. Too many companies that did have real pensions never funded them properly and have shifted that burden over to the taxpayers.

Not everyone, indeed very few people, have jobs and careers they love and will happily do until they are very old. Most of us go to work to earn the money that pays rent, buys groceries, and if we’re lucky send a kid to college. Many of those jobs are difficult, involve labor that wears out a body. The “full retirement” age has already been raised. Do not consider raising it more.

This is supposed to be the best country there is. Yet this country does not provide universal health care. Our public colleges and universities are rapidly becoming too expensive for many. And now this. You campaigned on a promise to never cut Social Security. Was that a lie? How can I trust you to look out for my best interests? For the best interests of 99% who don’t earn six, seven, or eight figure incomes? More than half of us make less than $50,000 a year. We pay a far greater portion of our income in taxes than do the wealthy, who benefit enormously from tax breaks just for them. They start with more, and they end up with even more.

What you are proposing in an enormous betrayal of your promise to us. Don’t do it.

Yours,
Sheila T.

[Nite Owl]

1. Excellent

I hope it is given to him to read.

[SheilaT]

2. Thank you.

Anyone else?

[Cali_Democrat]

3. Good letter

[Triana]

4. NICE! Well done.

Thanks. Everyone should be doing this! No excuses!

[SheilaT]

5. I'll confess that I'm better off than a lot of people.

I actually have the good fortune to have personal savings, a (tiny) pension that I'm going to start taking later this year, as well as SS. I'm 64, and I'll probably start taking the SS when I turn 66, and I will probably continue working for a few more years.

For me SS will be about a third of my income, about what it ought to be under the "three-legged stool" concept. Nonetheless, I can't afford to kiss a third of my income goodbye. Okay, I know that for someone my age SS will more or less be there, but still. And plug in any numbers for me that you care to. I'll just assure you that to lose a third of my income in retirement would put me at a poverty level.

[forestpath]

6. Good letter.