Anyone want to help debunk this stupid e-mail?

[Arger68]

To President Obama and all 535 voting members of the Legislature,

It is now official you are ALL corrupt morons:

The U.S. Post Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.
Social Securitywas established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.
Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and they only want more.
Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.
Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.

You have FAILED in every "government service" you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars

AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARESYSTEM??

Folks, keep this circulating. It is very well stated. Maybe it will end up in the e-mails of some of our "duly elected' and their staff (they never read anything) will clue them in on how American's feel.






Do we really give "the poor" 1 trillion a year? I notice there's nothing in this message about a trillion + per year on "defense" spending either.

[NJmaverick]

1. The government created the internet you are using to circulate this assinine

email. It's not the government systems, but the crap people like you put into it.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

2. Postal service, Medicare etc. are not broke. Ask them to provide a citation to "bunk" this instead

of putting the burden on yourself to "debunk" it.

A service like the Postal Service, or the military etc. is a government service and doesn't need to turn a profit like a private corporation.

[malaise]

3. Tell them to destroy government

Haiti is the model

[HopeHoops]

4. It costs 44 cents to have a letter picked up at your home and delivered to another home in the US.

Beat that!

[BlueState]

15. Yes exactly...

In fact, the Postal system could just as easily be used to make the case for government takeover of the health
care system.

If you want to make broad statements like this email, then like the postal service, a government system could offer
a comparable service to private sector entities at a fraction of the cost. On top of that the cost to the
American tax payer is limited.

[HopeHoops]

17. Hell, USPS Priority Mail is cheaper than UPS for damn near everything.

I also don't have to call for a pickup, but I happen to live within walking distance of my post office. If it is under 5 lbs, my scale (USPS approved) lets me determine the postage myself and I can just give the package to the mailman when he comes by.

Keep in mind though that all of this DOES come with a cost - junk mail. That's what keeps the USPS going so it is a necessary evil we have to accept in exchange for the unmatched service they provide.

[Puzzler]

5. First off I ask them to define "broke" ...

"Broke" in the context of a government run corporation can be almost meaningless.

I'm not American, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but is the USPS actually supposed to be run at a profit like a regular corporation? And if the USPS is really broke, then can we include all of the assets that the USPS owns, such as the billions of dollars worth of property and equipment? Seems to me that we should be looking at everything before we declare something as "broke".

[Individualist]

6. Tell the ignorant sender to learn how to fact check.

Why spend your time getting the facts when he/she is too lazy to do so?

[HughBeaumont]

7. Obama and Congress have been in office for 75+ years?

That's a stretch.

I notice there are a lot of 40+ year time periods there. Who's predominantly been running the country for the past 40 years? I'll give you a hint - the party's name sure don't start with no damned "D".

Also, in the 80s with a swipe of a pen, who turned what used to be boring businesses such as real estate, banking, finance and insurance into devil-may-care casinos? Uh, that would be Republicans and Moderates, you're welcome.

[NRaleighLiberal]

8. I would, if you wanted to get into it, say...

"The U.S. Post Service (it is Postal Service, Moron) works fine.
Social Securitywas (no such thing as "socialsecuritywas", moron)works fine.
War on Poverty - we have poverty due to the extreme greed of Republicans and their drive to deregulate, thus promoting corporate greed.
Medicare and Medicaid work fine. Any republican who complains about it should just refuse the help, you hypocrites.
The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. Thanks to all of the Republican efforts to block alternate energy development and stack decks like Halliburton, it is a mess.

No one has defined failure like Republicans.

Go eat shit, morons."

Or you can use "Moran" if you like, but they wouldn't get the joke!

[SargeUNN]

9. couple of points

Social Security was opposed by Republicans at it's creation, now they want to "save" it?
SSI only allows a maximum of about $650 (depends on what state you are in) total income per month and yet the poverty level is 11,000 so these people don't even come close to the poverty level. Even veterans on SSI gets their disability check counted against their total because it is called double dipping which McCain for some strange reason doesn't have apply to him. This is the handiwork of the Republican party when in control.

David Vitter of Louisiana is siding with the formaldhyde industry in court cases to make sure that they aren't held accountable for the death and illness their toxic chemical gave to the Katrina Area and now with these trailers spread all over, it has become the gift that keeps giving and yet the Republicans, especially Vitter, are doing all they can to see this death continues. See http://toxictrailers.com for more information.

[Arger68]

10. Thank you for all the replies so far,

keep 'em coming. I will put together a reply e-mail and hit "reply all" soon!!

[Enrique]

11. if having a deficit means failure, then our country is a failure

America was established in 1776. You've had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.

This country FAILED!!! Write your representatives and demand we go back to being a British colony!

[Hawkeye-X]

19. I, for one, would accept being a British citizen

Why? It already has NHS.

Hawkeye-X

[krispos42]

12. The Presidency and the Congress has shifted back and forth between the parties

• Nearly all of its existance, the Post Office was solvent
  
• Social Security has never failed to issue a check. If it's not solvent, that can be fixed with a tax increase or removing the income ceiling. Something that REPULICANS are agains.
  
• Fannie Mae worked fine for decades. It is only recently, under REPUBLICAN control, that it started having problems. Problems matched by the private banking industry.
  
• The War on Poverty was de-funded to fight Vietnam and to help pay for Reagan's tax cuts.
  
• Medicare and Medicaid are the victims of things like Medicare Part D, Republican-passed programs designed to be inefficient and thus transfer great wealth to private industry. Because of the Republican attitude towards the pooor, the system is chronically underfunded (becaue the poor don't deserve better).
  
• Freddie Mac also worked fine for decades. Republican-driven regulatory changes in the past 15 years set up institutional failures in Freddie Mac and the private mortgage industry.
  
• One of the side-effects of addressing global climate change is getting off of domestic and foreign oil and natural gas. How can we do that when the Repblicans a) deny GCC exists, b) fight all efforts to address GCC, c) fight any effort to regulate fuel-economy standards for automobiles, d) support globalization and the vast consumption of oil it takes to haul millions of tons of product from China to the US, and e) are in the pockets of the oil, natural gas, and coal companies?

I find the standard used to judge "sucess" interesting... the Republican party has been completely out of power several times in its history. Why didn't they dissolve themselves at that point?

[abelenkpe]

13. We certainly give corporations trillions

How much did we give the failed financial system when they bribed us with bringing hell about if we didn't pay up last year? Wasn't it over two trillion dollars? How much does the government give away in corporate welfare and tax breaks each year? Is that not a problem as well? I wonder why this email doesn't complain about that?

This is just another attempt by the jerks on the right to blame the poor for all their woes. Notice all these things they complain about were established to help the working class cope in a society that is weighted against them. This is the type of baloney circulated by befuddled conservative and libertarians. They are dangerously stupid. I hope you can provide enlightenment and talk them back from the brink of insanity.

What's interesting is the attack on the department of Energy. That's a new one. If the sender is so concerned about our dependence on foreign oil I hope they support alternative energy, efforts to combat climate change and cap and trade to spur financial interest in rectifying the situation. But somehow I doubt that.....

Stupid has infected our country. We need to combat it loudly. I hope you can compile a good response that others can use should this idiotic email find its way to our mailbox. Good luck!

[alfredo]

14. The Post Office receives no tax payer money. They were made a semi private

corporation back in the seventies.

Our population has grown quickly in the 32 years since the DOE was created. During that time we have had mostly anti government Republicans in control of the DOE. 12 of those years were lead by men who owe their wealth to oil companies and are on very friendly terms with the oil Sheiks in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Another eight years we were under control of a leader that did what he could to keep us dependent on foreign oil.

The war on poverty was abandoned when Reagan took power and instituted a war on the poor.

Would you rather Wall Street have control of your retirement fund as the Republicans want?

[Arger68]

16. Oh, I forgot to mention - the person who sent me this is

home drawing unemployment because the plant they worked at is closing - after working there for almost thirty years.

[HopeHoops]

18. Hmm - sounds like a definite WalMart shopper to me.

You know, the ones who lost their jobs because manufacturing was shipped off to China but think they're saving money by buying cheap crap from China at WalMart.

[Historic NY]

20. Just tell them the Rep. Presidents had 36 yrs to fix things....and

did nothing they can complain after Obama finishs his 2nd term.

[subterranean]

21. Those government programs meet needs the private sector is either unwilling

or unable to meet.
The Postal Service delivers mail anywhere in the country, no matter how remote, for the same low, flat rate.
Medicare and Medicaid serve population segments that the private insurance industry wants no part of, or would charge astronomical rates to cover.
Social Security was created to provide a basic safety net so that people would not be left destitute if their savings are wiped out in a market crash.

Sure, these programs are running into some financial difficulties due to demographic and other trends, but that doesn't prove they are failures. They have served Americans well for many, many years. How many private companies have existed that long and never had a loss?

And finally, the last point in the e-mail is just stupid because our government is not proposing anything like a government-run health care system.