Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Oppose the Republican plan to create a crisis

The Republican plan:
It's not just Medicare.  They've talked about privatizing Social Security... eliminating the EPA and giving polluters free rein to poison our air and water... rolling back public support for education -- everything from Head Start to college financial aid... crippling unions.

They’re pushing hard to cut programs that working families rely on while going to the mat to protect generous subsidies and special tax earmarks for the wealthy and well-connected.  

They won’t even consider cutting the “Bluegrass Boondoggle,” a $126 million giveaway to racehorse owners, but are ok doubling seniors’ health care costs.  

Their vision is basically to repeal the 20th century and go back to the Gilded Age -- let the fabulously wealthy live the good life, to heck with everyone else.

And to achieve this twisted agenda, they're holding the U.S. economy hostage, threatening not to allow the nation  to pay its bills and to drive up interest rates and create another financial crisis if we don’t pay their ransom demand.
In spite of the endless  media claims, the people are not buying this false crisis.  The just-released Pew poll makes it "crystal clear":
               60% of Americans want to keep Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are.
               61% think people on Medicare pay enough of their healthcare costs.
               58% say low-income people should keep their Medicaid benefits.
WE should stand firm.  And, we demand that the Democrats not give in to this hostage taking.
see the video below from the Rachel Maddow show. 
From Dean Baker.
In the same vein, when a politician asserts that social
security is going bankrupt and that there will not be
anything left for her children or grandchildren,
serious reporters would ridicule her for being ignorant
of the social security trustees projections. These
projections show that even if nothing is ever done to
change the programme, future beneficiaries will always
be able to collect a higher benefit than current
retirees. The "nothing there for our children" would be
treated as a serious gaffe, sort of like then Senator
Obama's comment before the Pennsylvania primary about
working-class people being bitter and clinging to guns
and religion. The difference is that the social
security comment has direct relevance for policies that
affect people's lives.

When a politician complains about President Obama's
taxes strangling the economy, reporters should ask them
whether they know that taxes are less of a burden on
the economy now than at any point since the second
world war. A politician who is concerned about tax
burdens should be expected to know this.

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