DO NOT F*** with 75 years of success.

[Union Yes]

Social Security has been a wonderful success since FDR signed it into law as part of the New Deal in 1935. I wonder if even FDR would have predicted that SS would be a success 75 years later.

With a projected solvency of 2042, that's over a 100 years of success. Quite an achievement from FDR. Please reflect for a moment on just how important FDR's presidency still is to America, to this day.

FDR was the first American president to advocate for the elderly. Think about the importance of that.

Social Security was a result of FDR's advocacy for the elderly.

Social Security is an example of when America got it right.

Slavery was America at it's worst. An atrocity and a blight on America's history.

The Social Security Act is an example of America at it's best. We did right by our senior citizens when FDR advocated for and fought for passage of the SSA.

Back in another time, when Dems FOUGHT for stuff.

75 years later, A DEMOCRATIC President is hinting at possible benefit cuts and using SS as a form of deficit reduction.

President Obama, if you cut benefits you and the Democratic Party will likely lose the senior citizen vote. There's an old saying in politics: Don't F*** with your most loyal voter demographic.

We have the party and President in place to make SS solvent for another 100 years. SS tax (FICA) was capped at about $105,000 in 2009. Higher income earners are exempt. Meaning, billionaires are exempt from FICA tax after $105,000 in income. Removing that cap could make SS solvent for the next 100 years.

Once again it is time for America to do right by it's seniors. It's time for the Dem party and President Obama to show some real leadership and put this issue to rest by removing the FICA cap.

It's time for the Dem Party to reach out to senior citizens by protecting Social Security and by protecting seniors incomes and livelihoods. What are seniors supposed to do without SS, go curl up and die?

The Dem Party is losing senior citizen support. One rock solid way to get it back is by protecting Social Security.

Something we all need to consider..

Had we allowed Republicans to privatize a portion of Social Security and invest said portion in the stock market, think of the potential TRILLIONS of dollars it would have cost us today to bail out that disaster. Privatization would have bankrupted Social Security and our nation.

All of which is why...

SIMPLY, YOU DO NOT F*** WITH 75 YEARS OF SUCCESS.

Find another form of deficit reduction, like the 'defense' budget.

[Betty Karlson]

1. Seems you are in good company:

A professor at the NY Hofstra University had similar complaints about what would count as good liberal policy:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/This-Is-Liberalism-by-David-Michael-Gree-100221-110.html

[ThomCat]

8. Wow! I agree with that professor 100%

What a warped political spectrum we have when a right-wing politician like Obama can pursue such a long list of openly right-wing policies with just a few token moderate policies thrown in, and somehow be considered a liberal. :(

People will argue viciously, passionately that he's a liberal, despite:

1. His first priority being massive unprecedented massive aid to banks with no strings attached
2. Anti-union policies
3. War-mongering and escalations, with permanent military presences, no known or stated justification for being in these countries, and no exit strategies
4. Continuing torture, while lying and claiming that we ended torture
5. Passed new laws solely to protect Americans who had authorized or committed torture from ever being prosecuted, violating the Geneva Conventions and making him an accessory to War Crimes (if they could ever be prosecuted anywhere in the world)
6. Continuing military tribunals instead of restoring the real rule of law
7. Continuing subsidies for oil and coal that are LARGER than the grants for developing or distributing renewable alternative energy, despite that fact that oil and coal don't even NEED subsidies
8. Continuing to bloat the military budget while talking about cutting social programs
9. Hinting that Social Security might be on the chopping block for the first time ever
10. Failing to reform health care because his publicly stated priority from the start was to guarantee that the insurance industry remained enshrined as a necessary and profitable part of all health care transactions
11. Promoting the privatization of public schools and taxpayer resources through massive expansions of charter school programs
12. Failing to support civil rights for LGBT people until public pressure (and a donor boycott) made the issue very public, gained traction, and refused to let the issue die
13. Failing to support women's control over their own bodies, and unrestricted access to safe legal abortions as a matter of right, and instead using Choice as a bargaining chip to get a BlueDog vote
14. Retained almost all of the Patriot Act and the enhanced presidential powers Bush gave himself, and won't undo this monstrosity
15. Defends all members of the former administration and all of their blatantly illegal actions and their policies, and has retained many of their policies, even though he campaigned against them
16. Claimed that Freedom Of Information Act requests would all now be honored again, but instructed his agencies to apply State Secrets restrictions to almost everything sensitive relating to the

The list of very, very UN-liberal things he has done could go on. Yet people still persist with this delusion that he's liberal just because he's more liberal that Bush.

[jeanpalmer]

2. When he created his deficit commission

why did he say, "Everything is on the table"? Why is a social program that runs a surplus until 2017 and pays for itself til 2042 on the table?

Erskine Bowles is a banker who has advocated privatizing SS, and Alan Simpson as a senator tried to cut SS and other social programs? How can a Democratic President appoint those two knowing their backgrounds? Where's the representation of the Democratic viewpoint?

If he messes with SS, he won't lose just the elderly vote, he will lose his Democratic base. And they won't buy the commission excuse.

[Lasher]

4. He said during the campaign that there shouldn't be a Social Security commission.

And now he creates one. He should have made it clear from the start that he would veto any measure that contained Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid cuts. Instead he says everything is on the table. That means everything regarding New Deal social programs, not anything else like military spending. It seems there's always plenty of room on Obama's table just as long as you don't want to promote objectives like single payer universal health care.

You're right, he is losing the support of his base. And rightly so, he is a Vichy Democrat.

[jeanpalmer]

6. These 180's that he has done

are really disturbing. The commission thing is another example. My question is, does he have no shame? He exhibits no remorse about misleading us. We don't even get an explanation. There's something deeply wrong there. A basic lack of honesty, and principle. The extent of it is overwhelming.

[Lasher]

7. There might be an explanation in those OFA emails I keep getting.

I don't know, I never open them anymore.

[Union Yes]

10. Yup totally agree. When I heard deficit reduction being spoken in the same sentence..

as SS I knew there could be trouble on the horizon.

Nary a peep on deficit reduction regarding our 'defense' budget.

[ThomCat]

3. Greedy Rich people with fuck with anything for a profit.

:(

They will happily dismantle social security if it will make them a lot of money. They don't expect that the will ever need social security. They are rich. They expect to be rich their entire lives and to die rich. So Social Security isn't anything personally important to them.

To them, Social Security is just another source of income, something else they can mine for other people's money.

They have no respect for social safety nets. They don't give a damn that people will suffer, starve and die without it. They just don't care. It's not their problem. It's just an opportunity for more money to be made.

:(

[AllentownJake]

5. The wealthy are either delusional

or I am.

The way they are fucking with things, they are heading us into the direction of a dictator, which as I stated on another thread is more dangerous to their interest than the current republic that only exist because people believe in it.

I guess they might think they have someone groomed for the role, but I'll ask of them to read some Roman history.

It wasn't long time wise after the fall of the Roman Republic that Caligula after taking the thrown was fucking their wives in front of them and executing them for sport.

[JoeyT]

9. If they're trying for a dictatorship, they've got a hell of a shock coming.

The first thing any dictator does is figure out what the biggest threats to his power are and start trying to eliminate them.
I can't imagine who'd make a bigger target than a trillion dollar multinational in that environment.

[Union Yes]

16. The wealthy are hell bent on absolute power as a class. Overlordism to the bone.

They demand total obedience. They despise dissent and resist progressive change.

To me, what stands in their way on their march to absolute power nowadays is the fact the they have plundered our nation into such a deep hole with our debt and they have nearly achieved ownership of almost all wealth, that they have so imperiled the economic environment into a state of collapse.

To me, economic collapse is about the only thing standing in their way. The wealthy will deny that the divide threatens our economy by defunding and sapping the purchse power of the remaining 85% of us. Even as we watch the wealth divide undo our economy as we speak, they still deny.

Corporations and the super-wealthy are oh so close to absolute power in America. If our economic environment weren't already so poisoned and in shambles they would have probably achieved absolute power by now. By corrupting Bushco's elections and trying to corrupt the process of elections nationwaide, they nearly pulled it off. 'It' being absolute power.

[dysfunctional press]

11. social security is a self-sustaining program that isn't even supposed to be a part of the budget...

and as such- cutting ss benefits should have NO EFFECT on the annual budget.

[galileoreloaded]

13. Only self sustaining as long as the US maintains a social contract and egalitarian governance. n/t

[dysfunctional press]

14. i'm talking about the way the program was set up.

it's not supposed to be a part of the federal budget- the fica money taken from workers paychecks was never supposed to be used to pay the regular day-to-day government bills...
saint raygun changed that, and not only cut taxes on the wealthy, but also RAISED the fica amount that would be taken from the worker's checks to do so.

[galileoreloaded]

12. Complex system destruction. The more complex the system, the more input required to change direction

75 years may just be the useful lifecycle. Unless you believe in infinite systems, maybe?

If we are going to be technocrats, we have to go all the way and recognize the failures and eventual obsolescence built into and inherent to these systems, not just gains and benefits the systems and processes allow.

The bell curve waits for no man.

[appal_jack]

17. Hogwash

There is no mathematical reason for SS to cease being the efficient and productive social program that it is.

The problem is politics. Our 'leaders' are displaying craven cowardice and corporate obeisance when firm principles and courageous vision is needed.

-app

[Union Yes]

18. As long as we have senior citizens, Social Security will never be obsolete.

I'm only 39 but I WANT Social Security to be there when I retire.

Not only that, it's the only source of income for millions of seniors.

[heli]

15. Yep. Touch that third rail

like the chimp tried to do.