Don’t Let Dems Cut Medicare, Social Security for the 99%

[madfloridian]

From Campaign for America's Future:

Don’t Let Dems Cut Medicare, Social Security for the 99%

The so-called Super Committee took a disturbing step this week, when Democratic members made a major concession to Republicans – proposing $200 billion in cuts to Medicare. And, there are reports that Democrats will make another concession to appease Republicans, changing the cost-of-living formula and cutting future Social Security benefits. With private pensions of the 99% being ransacked by the 1%, the last thing we need to do now is weaken our pillars of retirement security. Sign the petition to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Democratic Leader Pelosi: Don't let the Super Committee cut Social Security and Medicare.

Here is the wording of the petition. I will sign it gladly. I am totally so out of the mood to have Social Security and Medicare cut by my own party.

Petition Text:

We the undersigned demand that the Super Committee reject any proposal that cuts Social Security or Medicare. If the Super Committee fails to heed the will of the public, the House and the Senate should reject any such proposal. Poll after poll shows the public does not want to cut the deficit by cutting our own retirement security. Furthermore, the public does support other responsible measures for cutting the deficit, including higher income taxes on millionaires, new taxes on financial speculation and reducing waste in military spending. Support the 99%, not the 1%, and protect Social Security and Medicare.

They just keep barreling on ahead with the harm they are doing to public education. They keep right on stressing out seniors and the disabled needlessly.

And I gather we are supposed to say okay to all that...gee, just think how much worse it would be if the Republicans won. :sarcasm:

They are able to get away with screwing us all because both parties are doing it now.

[MichiganVote]

1. K&R

[tblue]

2. Are you surprised? I'm not.

SAD SAD SAD SAD SAD pathetic party!!!!

[teddy51]

3. Both parties in Congress have been bought and paid for by Corporations, so

I'm not at all surprised.

[Autumn]

4. Think how much worse it would be if the Republicans won.

is a fucking bullshit statement. If these Democrats are so willing to go along with this crap, I would prefer the pukes be in charge.

[madfloridian]

6. Thus the sarcasm tag.

:hi:

[Autumn]

9. I got the sarcasm mad, but I got to say

this is all bullshit. The very people we voted for are attacking our teachers, the poor and the elderly and I'm supposed to vote for that, I can't do it.

[madfloridian]

12. But...

you can't say that here, you know. :)

[Autumn]

13. Obama will get my vote.

Grudgingly, but Obama will get it.

[defendandprotect]

23. What you vote for, you'll get more of --

Voting for the "lesser evil" over decades has only moved the party and Congress

further to the right --

and delivered more corporatism/fascism.

[Jakes Progress]

26. You are owned then.

I seriously don't know what I will do. I still see the crowd that worked my team during the last election. There were really eight of us - six were educators. We worked our butts off. Not one will commit to voting for Obama this time let alone volunteer. They feel betrayed and lied to. Three swear they will sit it out. They are not stupid people. The know what that means. But they say they would feel like slime to get used like that again.

[great white snark]

35. You have a habit of telling people how they should feel.

And yet you don't even know how you will vote.

[Jakes Progress]

37. I've voted straight ticket for over forty years.

Pardon me if the dream dies slowly. I've held my nose and voted before. It hasn't helped yet. We drift. Without even putting paddles in the water, we still drift.

Yes. The dream dies slowly. But then it has some real assassins doing their best to kill it.

I can list the things that bother me and worry me about the administration. Can you?

[Autumn]

36. I agree totally. I have seen the same thing.

I hear a lot of Democrats tell me they are sitting it out. Damned if we do and damned if we don't.

[Jakes Progress]

38. And don't you love

the ones who have no qualms (or principles) pushing us out of the party. They say they want Obama reelected but do their best to alienate and fester.

[Autumn]

40. All you can do Jakes is ignore

them. They can't push me out of the party. No matter what, this old lady is a Democrat, I will vote for Democrats and if there aren't any, then fuck it I'm not going to vote.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands, well I'll go on from there. I am one people.

Edited to add: that D after their name, sometimes it sure as hell doesn't stand for Democrat. So you watch and see how they play.

[Jakes Progress]

41. True

I should ignore, but they are so funny when tweaked. The see it coming but can't keep the knee from slapping against their chest.

And never truer words than that putting a D by your name doesn't make you a Democrat. And I only vote for Democrats.

[SharksBreath]

52. You do know the Republican party used to be the Democrat party.

And right now they are both the same.


Brought and paid for.

"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands, well I'll go on from there. I am one people."

It's time. Matter of fact the time has passed.

[slipslidingaway]

8. There would be outrage if the Repubs attempted cuts, when our party talks ...

of controlling the deficit through entitlement reform (surely there will be trickle down cuts) we make excuses.

:(

[swilton]

63. Couldn't have said it any better.

If the Republicans had won at least the Democrats would act like an opposition party to not only perpetuate the illusion of the differences between the parties but more importantly to protect their jobs.

[slipslidingaway]

5. knr nt

[totodeinhere]

7. I don't think it was a "concession to Republicans" at all.

This is exactly what those so-called Democrats on the committee with the possible exception of Clyburn want to do. They didn't need the Republicans to force them to do something they want to do anyway. It's time for the people to take this country back from BOTH parties.

[NorthCarolina]

10. It's going to happen, I have little doubt of that anymore.

Nothing left to do but bend over.

[woo me with science]

11. "Representatives," my ass.

There is no longer room for denial. They are acting as rulers, not representatives.

[madfloridian]

14. Impressive counts....very clear. They just don't care what the 99% think.

Maybe they will before long.

[defendandprotect]

24. Policy of Third Way which controls Dem Party is "the base is to be ignored" ---

further, Jonathan Cowan, Pres. Third Way also further enlightened the nation

two weeks ago as a guest on C-span, saying that ....

"Populism and populist discussions/debate are the equivalent of Karl Rove

propaganda of extremism" --



Quite a dose of "up" is "down" propaganda there, I might say!!

[Aaria]

15. And my friends wonder why I say the Parties are two sides of the same coin.

[McCamy Taylor]

17. Curious, what party do your friends belong to? I dont know any Dems that say this.

[Aaria]

18. It's a mix. the dems disagree the most but when you look at the kabuki theatre..........

that they try to pass off as our democracy they soon see my point.

[defendandprotect]

25. Many Democrats say that -- and have been saying it for decades ... !!!

[McCamy Taylor]

16. I usually like your journals but you are missing the point. The GOP House is poised to

destroy Medicare by not repealing the 30% across the board pay cuts that will drive up to half of US doctors off the program ensuring that the elderly will have no place to turn except public hospitals.

The Dems are suggesting a 5% across the board paycut to providers and what amounts to $15 extra in premiums per Medicare beneficiary per month. Obviously, I would like to see the increase in premiums confined to wealthier Americans with the poor having no change. And as a physician, I know that even a 5% cut in fees will hurt providers who have 70% overheads----i.e it will be the same as an 18% cut in salary for a family doctor who sees only Medicare and whose other patients are on insurance that bases its fees on Medicare.

But the press and Dems are giving the GOP a free ride to kill Medicare come January. And every time the press or a Dem screams "Dems/Obama are gonna steal our Medicare" it primes the public to think that the coming January meltdown is the Dems fault.

The House voted to end Medicare in April. The press and too many Dems have conveniently forgotten this.

[madfloridian]

19. I have tried to think of that way....that they are saving us from the GOP

But it is not working. More and more it appears they are complicit.

Do I want to think that? I do not. But I am worried.

[Jakes Progress]

27. They are not saving us from the gop. They are colluding.

[defendandprotect]

29. About time we saw that word appear --- "COLLUDING" ... !!!

[defendandprotect]

28. ROFL ... Didn't we used to call this game-playing "good copy"/"bad cop" .... ????

Both parties are funded and controlled by corporate interests -- there's where

the stumbling bloc is -- corporate money - CORPORATE/FASCISM.

This isn't about legislation which will benefit the public or the general welfare --

This is about legislation which will move the agenda further to reaching the goals

of corporations.



Not only did Obama/Rahm do that in back room deals with Big Pharma and the private

HC industry to destroy single-payer/MEDICARE4ALL, but Rahm "crowed" about it later --

saying how "grateful" business should be to Obama for "having preserved the private

Health Care industry" ---!!


If that doesn't make you sick to your stomach, nothing will -- !!



:nuke:

[woo me with science]

62. So good to see people talking about this in black and white.

I am so sick of being told he simply lacks backbone or has to work with a difficult Congress. This entire Presidency has been a corporate scam, and that is obvious to anyone who is paying attention and watching the patterns. They use the same game over and over and over again.

There is no way they could have achieved MANDATING EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY TO PURCHASE CORPORATE HEALTH INSURANCE without playing us against each other. Not a prayer in the world absent a dictatorship. BOTH sides would have revolted - Democrats against the corporate piece and Republicans against the mandate. So they get one side all riled up about universal health care and the other side all riled up about government mandates, and they end up passing a "compromise"...keep the mandate, but make the mandate to buy the corporate product, and then chip out all the parts that we discover we can't afford...the parts that actually help people. Hence yesterday's news story (there is one every single day, it seems) about yet another betrayal, voting with the Republicans to tighten up eligibility for Medicare and SCHIP. Well, of course. That's the game.

Nobody on either side of the political divide would have signed up for what we got. We were ALL scammed into playing the roles we did. I remember watching a news show just before the thing was passed. The announcer was reading a poll saying that everyone on the Left hated the plan, and everyone on the Right hated the plan. He said (I am not making this up), "This must mean they are charting a good middle course."

Same crap on the budget talks and Social Security. What would Democrats have said if Obama had started out by saying, "We're gonna finish April with a mandate to cut over a trillion from the budget during the worst economy since the Great Depression, and we're not even gonna talk about revenues." They would have screamed bloody murder. But because he was willing to hostage the safety nets of millions of Americans, he actually had people THANKING HIM for these massive cuts, because he had "saved" SS by the end of April. This while the Super Theft Committee was being slid into its slimy place to shaft us down the road. What brilliant politics.

The one thing none of the defenders can ever answer is why he put SS, Medicare, and Medicaid on the table in the first place. Nobody made him do it. There was no precedent for it. People need to use their goddamn common sense.

They are getting exactly what they want, every time. Thank god the 99 percent is waking up.

[OwnedByFerrets]

65. Very good post and well thought out.

[defendandprotect]

68. Afaics, pretty much every one here at DU knows what's going on ....

there's been a long standing attempt by a few here to move halfhearted alibis

and I've seen little indication that any one believed them.

But moving to the point of OWS has certainly been brought about by Obama's

corporate agenda.

And the shock of his betrayal over three years which I think will take the Dem Party with him.


FEAR is the very last tactic to try to save Obama -- but I don't think that's going to work

any better than the other nonsense they've tried.


I'm in NJ and the weather really sucks today -- but I hear that 4 out of 5 OWS protesters

stayed at Zuccotti Park overnight!

Without generators!!


Nice post -- thank you!

[Jakes Progress]

31. I usually like yours too. But you are looking at the short game.

Continuous small cuts or a shocking cut that will galvanize people. The frogs in hot water is a very apt comparison here. We are dying by a thousand cuts and thanking the cutters.

bush was bad enough to convince the public that they didn't like what republicans did. They elected the first black president for this country. They wanted real change. This administration blew that.

Now I don't think Obama can lose, but that only makes the centrist party more inclined to keep on doing what they've been doing.

My mother lived through a depression. A family of seven living in shacks on the oil fields, taking in washing, running little food stations. No shoes for five years. She was a strong and compassionate woman, but every once in a while, when she watched the greediest and nastiest of republicans getting elected again and again, she would say, with sadness, that maybe people needed a depression again to make them relearn what people learned from the last one. It makes me sad to think that she might just be right.

[OwnedByFerrets]

67. Good post

[Jim_Shorts]

32. SGR trigger is the elephant in the room, isn't it?

Medpac's recommendations aren't exactly a free ride either, cuts to: Medicare Part D, benefits to seniors, post-acute care facilities, freezing rates for physicians for 10 years ect ect..

This is all part of the same problem - sky rocketing costs. We need real health care reform, like the rest of the world had on average 40 years ago.

And people wonder why there are protesters camped out in the streets.

[Vattel]

20. The debt deal was so dumb.

Thanks Dems for agreeing to shit.

[defendandprotect]

30. ... and we're supposed to believe that this wasn't more KABUKI for the voters ...

was the prizes continue to be taken home by corporate/fascists and

the candidates selling themselves to them for $$$$$$$$$$$$ !!

[girl gone mad]

48. And completely unnecessary.

Obama held all the cards. We're stuck with this super-congress bullshit because it's what he wanted.

There's a lot of magical thinking taking place in Washington right now. It reminds me of the run up to the Iraq War. Calm, rational, logical people warned that we were making a mistake, but they were ignored in favor of raving nitwits.

Now we are being led by a group of clowns who believe that if we cut, cut, cut government spending people will suddenly develop confidence in the economy and everything will miraculously be good again. You can't tell them that this idea makes no sense and that the empirical evidence shows austerity has failed everywhere it's been tried. They just know better, and they'll cling to their neoclassical economic religion all the way down.

[emilyg]

21. k/r

[defendandprotect]

22. They all -- Dems included -- owe their careers to corporations, not voters --

We have no leverage over them -- they well know that the buck will beat the vote.

Thom Hartmann was elaborating on that today in talking about how when he lived in

-- was it Portland? -- two separate referendums - negative for the public -- were

placed before voters. One I think required 2/3rds vote by Legislature to increase

taxes -- don't recall the other one -- but they both passed. Menawhile, the money

came from New York to push the referendums -- and such huge amounts of money that

it amounted to RW propaganda which couldn't be overcome and swayed voters.


This is another reason why we are not seeing any challenger to Obama though he is

immensely vulnerable. Candidates understand that they are running against a candidate

backed by great wealth which would not only defeat them but which has the power to

completely humiliate them.


There are two sides to the Citizens' United coin -- the first deals with ever more wealthy

corporations/elites financing candidates who will do their bidding -- but the other side

of the coin is the candidates and elected officials who are willing to SELL themselves and

our government to these wealthy folks!


As this scheme of bribery has taken hold of and thoroughly corrupted government it has

almost become the smart thing -- or cool -- to be the sure thing, the candidate with the

campaign treasure chest. One kind of power was swapped for another. It's changed the lives

of candidates/elected officials and it's changed ours -- not for the better.

[TomCADem]

33. Of Course, It Is Perfectly Okay For Republicans To Turn Medicare Into Vouchercare!

Blame Democrats, Give Republicans a Free Pass. Why is it perfectly okay for Republicans to completely abolish Medicare, and no one will lift a finger to demonstrate.

[madfloridian]

42. The Democrats compromised away the majority we gave them in 08

Now they are trying so hard to not upset the Republicans that they are actually giving them their agenda when they don't have to do it.

Where are our Democrats out yelling that they will NOT cut our safety net? Where the hell are they?

They are going to hurt seniors rather than hurt the feelings of the GOP.

[KansDem]

34. It now can't be revealed for 20 years who's been ripping us off in the mid-East wars...

...but we now have to surrender Medicare and Social Security to pay for the losses!

And these f*cks are doing it with a straight face!

[Jakes Progress]

39. Ahhh. Change you can . . . aw hell.

[golfguru]

43. Entitlements consume 60% of federal budget

I will be the first to volunteer modest cuts in MY social security and Medicare. Seniors must stop being selfish if this country does not want to go the way of Greece. We still have a little bit of time left to take control of budgets, but not more than one year, max. If we don't, the end result will be worse than what Greece is going through, and THEN NO ONE WILL BE HAPPY, as is now happening in Greece. There are riots, businesses are shutting down, retirees are being cut mercilessly. Just observe Greece to see what drastic austerity looks like. A much better solution is modest austerity now!

I have no choice except to sacrifice for younger people coming behind me. The rich MUST sacrifice even more. The military must be cut in a big way. We can no longer afford bases in hundreds of countries around the world on borrowed money from China. Why we maintain bases in Germany & South Korea? Those countries are doing better than us in terms of national debts.

Every one must participate to ensure better long term future!

[madfloridian]

44. You lost me at "Seniors must stop being selfish"

Your post appalls me.

[golfguru]

54. Please see my post #50

My bad in not including means testing for those who should take a cut.

[Jim_Shorts]

45. You didn't really just write that, did you?

Do you not read the multitude of posts on this subject every day?

Entitlements ARE NOT 60% of the budget. SS is self funded and completely independent of the general budget. If you are looking at a pie chart (like the one on wikipedia) that lumps all spending together, don't buy it. That kind of thinking says that if we just reduce spending on SS that will help balance the budget. By law SS can not be part of the general budget.

You are on the right track when you say the military should be cut. Now that is 60% of the budget, enough money could be cut there to pay for everything.

this is an old chart but you get the picture

[golfguru]

56. Agree 110%

Our military expenditures are the height of stupidity, foolhardiness and arrogance combined.
A cut in half would be a good starting point.

[Autumn]

46. Wow

Bullfuckingshit. Wars, tax breaks for the wealthy and you are willing to sacrifice your social security and Medicare because seniors are being selfish. Guess what? We fucking paid for those Entitlements.

[golfguru]

53. I do not know about others, but I will get way more than I paid

into social security. I retired at 62, and my family has a tendency to make it into the late 90's. My mother made it to 103. I am always told I look way younger than my age. I walk 5 miles every day, do not smoke or drink. Yeah, social security will pay me way more than I put in.

[Autumn]

55. Well that's okay, you can have my Mothers

she collected ONE check and we had to return half of that after her death.:shrug:

[golfguru]

57. Awww...my heartfelt sympathies to you and your family n/m

[Autumn]

61. Thank you. But don't you feel guilty and don't you think

that these bastards need to cut it. My Mother was not the only person who paid into it and never collected it. Look at the obituaries for a damn week. They have used SS as their little slush fund. Someone needs to get that money that was paid in. May you live to be a 105 and collect every dime and more.

[totodeinhere]

47. I agree with some of what you said but not the part about seniors being selfish.

There are plenty of seniors who are barely scraping by on their Social Security checks and I don't think it's selfish at all for them to want to take in enough money to live a decent life. Sure there are some selfish rich seniors but the vast majority of seniors are not selfish. But you are right to say that the rich must sacrifice more and to call for cutting the military and closing overseas bases.

[golfguru]

50. Obviously I am talking about seniors subject to means testing

If someone is entirely dependent on social security to scrape by a living, they should get a raise.

In cases like mine where I have other corporate pensions, I should get a cut.

[flpoljunkie]

51. The U.S. lags Europe in basic Social Security benefits. Shame on us!

We spend too much maintaining our military empire--to which Europe benefits.

[OwnedByFerrets]

66. Selfish?? You are deluded.

[flpoljunkie]

49. Signed!

[madfloridian]

58. Let's see...some say the Dems are cutting our safety net to save us...

from the GOP who wants to cut them more.

Is that what I am seeing? Really?

[great white snark]

59. Another here from ARA

http://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4055/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2903

[Marnie]

60. If they want us to vote for them they won't.

[OwnedByFerrets]

64. This WILL be done. Count on it. Its what the POWERS THAT BE want

and screw US. Fuck those smug bastards.