http://www.opednews.com/articles/Why-Senior-Citizens-and-Ve-by-Leon-Thompson-110911-460.htmlIn the present jobs bill, a majority of all the tax cuts and financial help mostly went to high wage earners ONLY who NOW pay federal income taxes, even though many of these identical wage earners have already received a tax cut through the Bush tax cut extension in the past. Additionally, on January 1, 2010, federal workers had also received a "permanent" 2.9 percent wage increase during this depression or deep recession that they now call it. Almost everyone in this Nation has now received some form of "financial assistance" within this Obama jobs (stimulus) bill, with the exception of our American poor, which also include our senior citizens and our disabled and retired U. S. veterans -- even though this segment of our population has previously paid over the years approximately 20 percent of their income each and every year in the form of local city taxes, state taxes, and federal taxes. These previous taxes include gasoline, tires, batteries, used or new automobiles and auto parts, telephone calls, home heating oils or natural gas, electricity, and of course any bus or air travel taxation fees when you go on a trip to your Grandma's house.
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The only thing that our Senior Citizens received from this present Obama jobs bill is the possibility that this Democratic President and Congress may put Medicare on the table for future reform cuts. The reason he gave in his jobs plan speech was that cuts or reforms may be needed due to higher healthcare costs, for which the President is partially to blame by not including a Medicare-For-All public option plan that would have helped fund the Medicare System with more paying members and at the same time provided competition that would have contained higher medical costs. In addition, the Democratic Congress at the time the National Health Bill was passed, did not enter a provision that would permit our U. S. citizens to purchase their drug needs from foreign sources, nor did they include a provision in the bill that would require that all drug prices should be negotiated prior to purchasing that is now practiced in veterans' hospitals. In retrospect to the previous, who are our politicians trying to protect or favor? Themselves or the drug industry cartel?
Why is it that our poor, disabled veterans and retirees are not part of this so-called economic jobs (stimulus) recovery program when it relates to more income through tax cuts when it is our low-income citizens who are now hurting the most? Additional income for these citizens to spend at the retail sector in an effort to increase spending at the retail sector will do the same if they are employed or not. In addition, middle class or union workers' monthly incomes may average approximately $40,000 per year in comparison to a low-income senior who may only receive $9,000 per year or less through their present Social Security payments. I also have been informed that many of our seniors who now fit into this identical low-income bracket are in dire need of assistance.
Does the government truly believe that "by not" cutting Medicare or entitlement programs for the poor that it "will financially help" these citizens during this depression? If our highly-paid working citizens now need a tax cut to "survive" or to boost their income today, it is therefore inconceivable that our low-income seniors today are also in desperate need of additional tax cut "income." Medicare or entitlement programs are not additional income programs to buy what you may need to survive or to sustain their livelihood at the retail sector. To the contrary, Medicare reforms or cuts will only provide seniors with additional "hidden" expenditures to receive their present medical needs.
More at the link --