Tearful plea: Woman Breaks Down To Lawmaker Over Threats to Social Security

[limpyhobbler]

I'm sure there are cretins out there who would say this woman deserves to be in this position because she failed to adequately provide for herself when she was young. But they are going to hell:

Near the end of the event Sheryl Tenicat, of Des Moines, told her story through tears. “$624 a month. That’s what I live on. 99 of that goes to my Medicare Part ‘A’ and ‘B’. After I get my check in two weeks, it’s gone. I have nothing. I live on what I eat here (at the senior center). I don’t want my cost of living cut because I’ve paid in since I was 16.”

Tenicat, who is retired, said she is looking for a job because she can’t pay her bills. Her car broke down and she can’t afford to fix it. So she rides the bus to get to the senior center to get her free meals. She finished her plea for help by telling Harkin she is out of ways to save money, “There is no way for me to eat less.”

via http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/08/catfood-update-could-you-live-on-this.html

[Skittles]

1. I donate to my local food bank

I read the articles they send me and so many of them involve seniors

[limpyhobbler]

3. that's cool.

It is a sad thing. It's good to donate.

[polynomial]

2. The same happened to my mom

It is disgusting to think about how America really is, how we got to this a crazy time, how leadership is so inept. When I came back from Vietnam I lived in a half-finished basement with my mother. It was cold poverty minimal food and shelter for our lives until she died. She worked in a factory for twenty years to support me and sister through high school.

Reflecting I weep with sorrow and disappear for lack goodness that is the bear minimum of society of today. The old are cast away in this country like children of obscurity, no child left behind but the old certainly are. Robbed in old age by our leadership but made to sacrifice without complaint for decades.

The holding and hugging political thieves their dishonor is reflected by these women and millions of others that should have social security increased not decreased, doubled or tripled to achieve a living benefit. No corporation should be given the right to do business unless this goal is the critical factor in the gross national product. Life is the gross national product. Life is important in the older years, the experience, the history, we learn is from those that endured the mistakes of other yet we ignore all this treasure.

A new way to retire is in the plan for the new millennium, and Obama or the Republican leadership has no clue on how it will be done. Many know how it will be done. A totally new approach in time and the way people retire is in the planning but this Republican and Democratic generation do not have the capability to make it happen. The greed, corruption, deceit, power hungry struggle, selfishness, and hatred have to be overcome. This generation to privatize, to profiteer without accountability, is those ingredients that propel things that are too big to fail. Now technology shows all America how big too big is. Too big to fail is looking right back at all America in this video, it hits everyone squarely it represents too big to fail.

We failed.

[limpyhobbler]

5. Thanks for sharing your story.

It's very moving.

I would say Senator Harkin in this video is a (possibly rare) politician who actually does care about regular people, and shows it through his work.

thanks again.

[grilled onions]

6. I Agree With Everything You Said

It's almost like once a person hits a certain age or sinks to a certain income they are tossed in a huge round dumpster to be forgotten by the elite and many who want to be elite. These people(and I am one myself being disabled) are considered a drag on society and every problem in this country they have managed to blame on those who have had the least to do with it. You can't be blamed for bad investments when you never earned enough to have ANY investments. You could not have mismanaged money when you never earned decent wages or had to quit early because of a disability. They blame you if you had kids(they say you could not afford them so you should not have had them) and yet go totally nuts if you are a couple that never had any in the first place. You could get laid off but they will come back with "well you must have done something wrong to get "fired" ". They are constant liars in a constant stae of demial that THEY have anything to do with our plight. Their heads are so far up in the clouds they have never bothered to look a the throngs at the bottom of the mountains(where most of us seem to live).
I wish we could help every struggling senior out there. There will be many more tears before this day is over.

[ctsnowman]

4. K & R