This lady is pissed.....but, she's also right!

[LongTomH]

A friend forwarded this statement from a Wyoming lady, concerning Alan Simpson's statements about senior citizens, i.e. that they are "the Greediest Generation." If you remember, the (Not Very) Hon. Mr. Simpson also called Social Security: "a Milk Cow with 310 million teats." The lady's name is Patty Myers; here's her statement:

"Hey Alan, let's get a few things straight..

1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole for FIFTY YEARS.
   
2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63).
   
3. My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would have made Bernie Madoff proud..
   
4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, you and your ilk pulled the proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age 67. NOW, you and your shill commission is proposing to move the goalposts YET AGAIN.
   
5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day One, and now you morons propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because you idiots mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal money from Medicare to pay the bills.
   
6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why? Because you incompetent bastards spent our money so profligately that you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay off YOUR debt.To add insult to injury, you label us "greedy" for calling "bullshit" on your incompetence. Well, Captain Bullshit, I have a few questions for YOU.
   
   
   1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your pathetic 50-year political career?
      
   2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?
      
   3. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?
      
   4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or, as usual, have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?

It is you, Captain Bullshit, and your political co-conspirators called Congress who are the"greedy" ones. It is you and your fellow nutcases who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers. And for what? Votes. That's right, sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of advancing your pathetic political careers. You know it, we know it, and you know that we know it.

And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a bitch."

Boy, is she pissed! And she has a right to be! And so do we (speaking for my generation and older!)

What about you? The question is no longer: "Are you pissed?" It's: "Are you pissed enough, and What are you going to do about it?"

[SharonAnn]

1. Don't ask how much he "earned". Ask how much he was "paid". There's a difference.

We need to be careful of our "framing", even in questions like this.

When we say someone "earned" something, it means that they deserve it.

When someone is "paid" something, it simply means that they were paid. It does not imply anything about what they "earned" or "did not earn".

There is no CEO in the entire world who has ever "earned" tens of millions of dollars or more. Not one! They just manipulated the system so that they got "paid" that much.

[FiveGoodMen]

20. Amen!

There is no CEO in the entire world who has ever "earned" tens of millions of dollars or more. Not one! They just manipulated the system so that they got "paid" that much.

Well worth repeating!

[LiberalFighter]

57. Another point is how much did they benefit from their position of power?

Better hotels, better airline bookings, better food, fewer delays in everyday life, better illegal real estate or financial dealings?

[Cleita]

2. From her written statement to Mitch O'Connell, et al's eyes.

[TheMastersNemesis]

3. Simpson Should Be Run Out Of Town On A Rail Anywhere He Goes

You are right Simpson lived off of the tax payer for his entire career and now he has a full pension for life and full health at taxpayer's expense. He should have to endure the tomato routine when he speaks in public. His policies will actually kill seniors and end lives early and create poverty and misery. There should be a public price to pay like mockery and ridicule.

I will be he supports ending veterans benefits too.

[calimary]

24. They ALL should be run outta town on a rail. ANYONE with an "r" by his or her name.

And a few cowardly Dems, too, who won't stand up and be ballsy Democrats!

[sabrina 1]

33. He did attack Veterans also. He said they were heroes when they were

on the battlefield, but suggested that by taking their benefits now, they are no longer heroes.

The system that automatically awards disability benefits to some veterans because of concerns about Agent Orange seems contrary to efforts to control federal spending, the Republican co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s deficit commission said Tuesday.

Former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson’s comments came a day after The Associated Press reported that diabetes has become the most frequently compensated ailment among Vietnam veterans, even though decades of research has failed to find more than a possible link between the defoliant Agent Orange and diabetes.

“The irony (is) that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess,” said Simpson, an Army veteran who was once chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

Alan Simpson Condemns Disabled Vets for Breathing Agent Orang

Veteran's groups wrote a letter to the President asking that Simpson be removed from the Deficit Commission after he made those remarks.

[Love Bug]

52. He said that about Vets? Fuck him.

A Veteran is a person who, upon enlisting, handed the government a virtual blank check with the understanding the government could put any amount of sacrifice on it, up to and including the Vet's life. Simpson hasn't been asked to do so much as offer to get a paper cut for his government. Fuck him.

[LiberalFighter]

59. Veterans should receive medical no matter how long they served

if they served while in contact with Agent Orange or any other chemicals. They should also receive medical for life if they were injured that did not involved just a flesh wound that does not cause any impediment to work. They should receive treatment for PTSD and other like problems resulting from combat for as long as they have the problem and if diagnose with it later reinstate treatment. They should receive medical for life if they have made the military their career (20 years?). If they serve less than career if it is more than 4 or 6 years it should be certain basic benefits covered and if they want fuller coverage they should pay some premiums either at full or pro-rated based on service and whether it involved combat service. If they serve just one signup and don't receive any injuries, disease their coverage would end either when their signup ends or if they receive education benefits. Whichever ends last. Actually there should be a period after deployment ends that allows time for the soldier to find a job for them to continue to have medical coverage. If their employer doesn't provide coverage and they are not in that group covered above provide them with Tri-Care but they have to pay insurance premiums at a pro-rated cost based on their income level maybe including service years in the military. Homeless veterans would not pay. If they work for a mercenary group then they would be disallowed from participating.

So basically, everyone would be covered except the mercenaries and maybe some that have good employer insurance. Others would either be fully covered or have supplemental coverage in addition to their employer health insurance.

What really needs to happen is for single payer and include the veterans in with the social security group. Push it on the veterans that single payer will happen and when it does the military benefits will cease. And encourage them to lobby for what they need in single payer so that their current benefits are the same or nearly enough the same.

I possibly left out some situations but I don't know all about them.

[felix_numinous]

4. Epic rant

it is to the point and right on target!!

[Ganja Ninja]

5. K & R for the truth!

[hifiguy]

6. That isn't just hitting the target,

it's obliterating it with a chain gun. Right on, Ms. Myers!!

[ieoeja]

7. She sounds like a teabagger.

"I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again."

She has worked through, what, about two dozen tax decreases in her lifetime? And yet she complains about tax increases "yet again."

Instead of accusing Simpson of stealing the money to continually fund these tax cuts, she falsely accuses him of stealing the money to give it to "zero ambition losers," to "buy votes."

Those words are straight out of the Rightist proganda list in which they pretend that we are buying the votes of poor people by trying to save what little is left of the safety net while they completely ignore the funneling of taxpayer money to the wealthy.

[drm604]

36. I thought the same thing when I read it,

yet everyone here seems to be praising her.

[Doremus]

37. My thought as well.

She's spewing RW talking points.

The meme that we're out of money is as bogus as Mitt Romney's tax return.
RW foamers use it to justify cutting SS, Medicare, Medicaid and anything else they don't agree with.

The woman referred to in the OP is a teabagger, no doubt.

[hfojvt]

44. worse yet

this same rightwing rant seems to make the greatest page every three months or so. This is the third time I have seen it. At least this time I am not the only one objecting to it.

[drm604]

48. This is the first time I've noticed it on here.

Sure, I agree that Simpson's characterization of senior citizens as "the Greediest Generation" is despicable, but if you read beyond that you notice the right-wing nonsense about taxes and "ponzi schemes" and "zero ambition losers".

I think maybe people don't actually read the entire thing.

[drm604]

60. And now it's on the front page!

[freshwest]

40. Pure Teabaggery. Re: Taxes, losers, age change, etc. Written by and for people who hate Democrats.

[fromwyoming]

43. what part of "Lady from Wyoming" is ambiguous?

Look at the political demographic profile of Wyoming. The reddest of the red states. Only Idaho and Utah are in our league: a 100% national political delegation and a 97% state delegation Republicans. The likelihood that this author is a woman or a Democrat is slim; the likelihood that she is a free thinker is even thinner. The likelihood that this is a political plant from outside Wyoming is....likely. Wyoming has a love affair with Alan Simpson and some folks really like that he has recently stood tall for juveniles in our state who are treated very, very poorly. So it is interesting, for a Wyoming resident, to see that the right has chosen him as a target for their venom. Very curious. But this did not originate in Wyoming, I am pretty certain.

[hfojvt]

47. in other places it is attributed to a "fellow in Montana"

soon it will be one of Lincoln's or Mark Twain's quotes

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/simpson.asp

[Fla Dem]

53. Agree, when she rants about "tax increases" there is no mention

of the crippling Bush tax cuts to the top 1%. There are a few things I agree with, i.e.; medicare and social security.

[gtar100]

8. If only these assholes like Simpson could be sat down and made to listen

Unfortunately, they live in their delusional world only by being good at avoiding and ignoring people that don't fit into their world view.

Excellent response to these assholes. It would only be better if Simpson and those like him actually heard it. Good that this is out there though, as it pulls us all together who see the bullshit that Simpson and his fellow repugs are doing.

[HappyMe]

9. k&r

[sulphurdunn]

10. Hell, are you kidding?

Compared to the present leadership of the republican senate, Simpson is a Boy Scout. At his worst, most arrogant and insulting (which was most of the time) he still stood head and shoulders above any of the current crop of stepford republicans now serving the same Wall Street masters.

[noiretextatique]

14. i'll never forgive him for his role in the thomas confirmation hearings

he was a real asshole. but you are right...he not a vile as the current crop of republicons.

[sulphurdunn]

17. Yea.

Simpson is an asshole with personality, something pretty much lacking (the personality part) within the neo-republican party. In fact, the only current republican senator I can think of who has any blood in his veins is that nasty old bastard John McCain.

[RebelOne]

11. As a social security recipient,

I agree with everything she states. I have been working since I was 17, which means I have been paying into the system for 56 years. I am now 73, and I deserve every cent that I am receiving.

[noiretextatique]

12. people are getting angrier and angrier

i know i am excellent rant.

[Angry Dragon]

13. kick

[patrice]

15. k&r

[BB_Troll]

16. Hypocrisy run rampant in DC. This is Exhibit A, Your Honor.

Instead of treating Social Security revenue as General Revenue that income should have been kept in lock box interest-bearing account. Supplementing the budget in this way is criminal!

[rurallib]

18. Obama should be kicked in the ass for creating the Simpson-Bowles commission

and giving those two clowns a forum with some credibility.

[lark]

21. Yeah, I'm worried about him resurrecting it once he's safe.

EVeryone thinks Obama will be so liberal in his 2nd term - I worry that he will return to trying to get everyone to like him and really push the shredding of the social safety net. It was his idea to begin with, not Boehners. We are just really lucky Boner took a major win for Repugs and wouldn't accept it.

[tomp]

49. several times. definitely one of his worst moves. nt

[badtoworse]

19. Brilliant! She's right on the money

[zaj]

22. It wasn't "mismanagement"...

She says: "you idiots mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal money from Medicare to pay the bills"....

That's wrong, IMO. It was a deliberate effort to drain the resources of SS in order to end it. Don't confuse that with unintentional mismanagement.

[progressoid]

23. Social Security Ponzi scheme?

Hello Rick Perry!

[whathehell]

25. Go on with your Bad Self, Ms. Myers!...You speak for me and the rest of

our superfine generation.

[tanyev]

26. Captain Bullshit!

[whathehell]

30. Isn't that great?....I love it!..n/t

[goclark]

46. That is a real winner " Captain Bullshit"

[cbrer]

27. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

And then some

[Sarah Ibarruri]

28. Excellent! Look at this: Alan Simpson had "run-ins with the law"

Simpson had several run-ins with the law during his youth. A "friend of the Court" brief filed before the United States Supreme Court in the juvenile imprisonment cases Graham v. Florida and Sullivan v. Florida states: In Simpson’s words to this Court, “I was a monster.”

One day in Cody, Wyoming, when Simpson was in high school, he and some friends “went out to do damage.” They went to an abandoned war relocation structure and decided to “torch” it. They committed arson on federal property, a crime now punishable by up to twenty years in prison if no one is hurt, and punishable by up to life in prison if the arson causes a person’s death. Luckily for Simpson, no one was injured in the blaze. Simpson not only played with fire, but also with guns. He played a game with his friends in which they shot at rocks close to one another, at times using bullets they stole from the local hardware store. The goal of the game was to come as close as possible to striking someone without actually doing so. Again, Simpson was lucky: no one was killed or seriously injured. Simpson and his friends went shooting throughout their community. They fired their rifles at mailboxes, blowing holes in several and killing a cow. They fired their weapons at a road grader. “We just raised hell,” Simpson says. Federal authorities charged Simpson with destroying government property and Simpson pleaded guilty. He received two years of probation and was required to make restitution from his own funds – funds that he was supposed to obtain by holding down a job.

... As he [Simpson] has described it, “The older you get, the more you realize . . . your own attitude is stupefying, and arrogant, and cocky, and a miserable way to live.” Simpson stated;"I was just dumb and rebellious and stupid. And a different person." And then added;"You're not who are when you're 16 or 18. You're dumb, and you don't care and you think you are eternal."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_K._Simpson

Actually, Alan, you're still a stupefyingly ignorant, cocky, dumb, rebellious and stupid asshole, only now you're an OLD stupefyingly ignorant, cocky, dumb, rebellious and stupid asshole.

[gejohnston]

35. and to think he was my Senator

He played a game with his friends in which they shot at rocks close to one another, at times using bullets they stole from the local hardware store. The goal of the game was to come as close as possible to striking someone without actually doing so. Again, Simpson was lucky: no one was killed or seriously injured.

Some rancher's kid would be in jail.
If my friends and I did something like that with our rifles, the cops would be the least of my problems let alone any of the other crap.

[Liberal_in_LA]

29. kick

[truedelphi]

31. So just exactly who do we turn to?

i imagine that both Garamendi and Speier, Calif. Dems both, are representing us on this issue in the House.

But how many of the Senate members give a rats' ass about the people on Social Security?

And once Obama appointed his Catfood commission, I don't know if he is any more reliable than anyone else. (Although he can be relied on to talk up a storm while running for election, but once re-elected?)

[truedelphi]

32. Oh and my Good Ol' Boy Blue Dog Dem, Mike

Thompson, my "rep" in the House, carries around the same midleading "Pie Chart" about government spending that Republicans carry around. This chart shows that MediCare and Social Security take up to one third of all government spending.

Bill Maher also uses this pie chart - and it is misleading because the Social Security spending comes out of its own damn fund! Which currently has a 2.1 Trilliion dollars surplus!

[K Gardner]

34. Bookmarked ! K&R

[libinnyandia]

38. The sad thing is he's to the left of most if not all GOP office-holders today.

[WiffenPoof]

39. I Really Like...

....the Captain Bullshit name...struck me as too funny.

[James48]

41. Did you bother to "Snopes" it first? No? I thought not.

because if you HAD hit SNOPES first, you would have found that was floating around more than a year ago, and no, much of it simply is made up.


Here:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/simpson.asp

Please, people- if you get some garbage in your email inbox, please spend 30 seconds researching it before you post it here.

[MannyGoldstein]

42. Does Snopes actually say that parts were made up?

I don't see that, perhaps I'm being spacey.

[JayhawkSD]

45. This lady is completely wrong.

1. Wrong. He has been being paid a salary for work because the voters have continuously reelected him. If he is not doing his job and not earning his salary, why are the voters continuing to reelect him?
2. Good for you. I have been paying into it for 54 years. I am 69.
3. Wrong. The money in the Social Security trust fund is safely invested in the safest monetary instruments in the world – US Treasury Bonds. Every bit of that money paid into the system by participants will be available to pay promised benefits.
4. Not an invalid point, but the system promised benefits, not when they will be delivered.
5. They are not “stealing from Medicare to pay other bills.” Medical costs are increasing and the slated decreases are a program to control costs, and to provide benefits for a longer term.
6. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Congress has been cutting taxes since Clinton last raised them in 1998. Since that time voters have demanded more and more tax cuts, electing candidates who promised cuts and defeating those who have not. We pay the lowest tax rate of any developed nation in the world. Whether or not we get fair value for those taxes is another question, but the necessary increases are not the result of profligate spending, they are needed to redress the voters endless and unslakable thirst for more and more tax cuts.

Even you yourself, lady, admit that the fault lies with voters. After castigating legislators for all kinds of misbehavior you ask, “And for what? Votes.” Yes, their misbehavior gets them votes because the voters want those tax cuts, and the pork, and the benefits of all of the behavior for which you blame the legislators. But it is the voters who elect them to office, and who keep them there by endlessly reelecting them.

We get the precisely government that we deserve.

[MrMickeysMom]

51. VOTERS have been demanded more and more tax cuts???

If the numbers bore out the potential voters (which is a BIG part of this formula), and the media was not corporately controlled AND... people educated themselves (part of the formula) you would get a true evaluation of who's voting for what, not, what bill is amended by other language, then reported so that the general public is under-informed... thank you, 5th estate...

But, I get your drift... we DO get the government we deserve. Now, on to the next deep thought... How bad does it have to get?

[MrMickeysMom]

50. I love this woman... THIS IS EVERYWOMAN (& MAN)

Piss on Alan Simpson for evaluating any generation that is heterogenious. He couldn't recognize one...

He and those who helped him bilk the system, screw (illegally) with the tax laws by mixing the general funds and Medicare Trust funds, can go to hell.

[lunatica]

54. The Lady speaks for me

[klook]

55. "She" had me until "zero ambition losers"

Who are these "losers" supposed to be? Welfare & food stamp recipients? OK, maybe "she" is referring to Bush's billionaires, who got such generous tax cuts. Still, this letter insinuates that Rick Perry was correct when he said Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Wrong.

Thanks to those who've pointed out that this letter is full of errors and right-wing talking points -- and that the source is highly suspect. (Snopes, anyone?) The earliest source for this I've found yet is from December 2010, when the author was supposedly "a 'greedy' Montana senior" of indeterminate gender. The Snopes reference cites it as coming from "an unknown fellow in Montana."

By the way, searching on the phrase "raided Social Security to pay for" yields interesting results. Most of us here would agree with the sentence "George W. Bush raided Social Security to pay for tax cuts for the 1 percent" (or "Iraq&quot . But there are many other perspectives on teh Interwebs: Sometimes Congress has raided Social Security to pay for "LBJ's Great Society," sometimes it's "bridges to nowhere," and sometimes it's pet projects.

Social Security and Medicare are not broke, by the way, and they do not contribute to the deficit:

But the idea that Social Security is running out of money, or is already broke, is something the right-wing Yammering Heads talk about a lot, for example:

ERIC BOLLING (Fox Business host): Well you can't disagree that it is a Ponzi -- it is a Ponzi scheme. What they've done is they've taxed people now, they're gonna pay people down the road. The problem is they've run out of money. They've also raided the trust fund. There's supposed to be 2.3 trillion dollars in the fund. What are in there are a bunch of treasury notes. They say we're gonna just use this money right now, we'll pay you back. That part's not really a Ponzi scheme -- if that were a Ponzi scheme, all of government is a Ponzi scheme, but, this is easily fixable. I mean, easily fixable.

BRIAN KILMEADE (co-host): That's what everyone says, out of all the entitlements, this is the easiest.
- Source: "Social Security is Not a Ponzi Scheme," Media Matters for America

[ieoeja]

56. A rightwing rant gets 162 recs on DU.

What is not far rightwing about, "give OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers in return for votes"?

What is not far rightwing about, "turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme"?

What is not far rightwing aobut, "increase our taxes yet again" given the fact that we have DECREASED taxes over and over again until we are at the lowest rate since before the Great Depression?

What is not far rightwing about, "spent our money so profligately that you just kept on spending"?


When did my fellow DUers get this fucking stupid?

[DaveJ]

62. Nevertheless Simpson messed up

He apologized, but I can't help wondering how can anyone making such a statement can be in any position of power? I think that "teet" statement would lose someone a job Taco Bell. It's not fair that he ever got to be employed in such a position while others are struggling to survive.

"Stupid" as an unnecessarily strong remark to use against DUers. The post provides interesting insight regardless of its source. I appreciate Simpson seems like a moderate, old school traditional Republican, but I still do not understand why Obama kept him.

[Glaisne]

58. Send this everywhere

God this is good and spot on!!!!!!

Send this to all your friends and relatives and to your local papers.

[ErikJ]

61. TAX THE RICH THEN!

The raiding of SS has been necessary for one main reason. To keep the Reagan/Bush tax cuts for the rich. That's why Repubs mocked Gore for wanting to put a lock-box on SS in 2000 campaign.

[LongTomH]

63. for those who think this person is a Teabagger or RWer...please read!

For most people out there in the public, you're going to get mixed messages, some stuff that we can agree with....a lot we can't. This is a good example. What struck me, and the people reccing this, was her comments about denying Social Security and Medicare benefits to those of us who've paid into the system all our working lives.

What upsets some people are: 1) The complaint about raising 'our' taxes, and 2) the comment about giving "OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers in return for votes."

I'm not certain about the context for "give OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers in return for votes." Probably I should have edited that line out! My Apologies!

About the "raise our taxes" comment. Please note: That the tax code has become more regressive since Ronald Reagan. Billionaires now pay a smaller percentage of their income than most of us. I'm pretty sure this lady is not, repeat not a member of the 1%, so her comments about raising our taxes can, almost certainly, be taken as: "Don't raise taxes on the 99%."

My apologies again for not editing out the "zero ambition losers" line; but, most of what she's saying is something that resonates with most of us. Does anyone here really like Alan Simpson or his comments about "The Greediest Generation?"