{"id":4558,"date":"2011-04-12T03:32:20","date_gmt":"2011-04-12T10:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4558"},"modified":"2011-04-12T03:32:20","modified_gmt":"2011-04-12T10:32:20","slug":"dont-touch-social-security-or-medicare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/12\/dont-touch-social-security-or-medicare\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Touch Social Security or Medicare!"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday evening Barack Obama will be giving a speech on the budget, and although I refuse to pass judgment until after I actually hear what he has to say, Republicans have made such great gains for their draconian policies, I would be crazy, if I did not look to it with fear.  For me, there is a line in that sand.  Don\u2019t touch Social Security or Medicare.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"12socialsecirity\"The President’s scheduled to discuss Social Security, Medicare, and the deficit in a speech this Wednesday. Let’s hope he isn’t about to make a serious mistake. <\/p>\n

White House advisors like David Plouffe <\/a>are saying that the President thinks "we have to do more" to rein in entitlement spending, and there are reports which suggest that the "more" he has in mind is "less" – less for middle class and lower-income Americans, that is. They say that the President’s planning to propose spending cuts for Social Security and Medicare<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Nothing’s been confirmed, but it doesn’t help when Mr. Plouffe’s follows his remarks about "doing more" to cut entitlements by saying that these cuts would be made with a "scalpel" and not a "machete." If the President amputates the wrong limb, who cares what kind of blade he uses<\/strong>? <\/p>\n

And that’s exactly what benefit cuts would be: unnecessary amputations. Social Security doesn’t add to the deficit, and the only way to fix Medicare is by reducing the profit motive’s influence on health care costs<\/font><\/strong>. Could the President really be planning to cut these programs anyway?<\/p>\n

Don’t do it, Mr. President. For everyone’s sake, please don’t do it\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Huffington Post<\/a>><\/p>\n

Social Security is not welfare.  It is a social contract for which workers have paid all their lives.  Not touching benefits for those 55 and over sells out the rights of everyone under 55.  A 54 year old worker has been paying premiums for 35 or more years.  Can we justify cutting their benefits, or the benefits of a worker that has paid 25 years, or 15 or 5, or one?  if we are going to change Social Security the only just way to do it is to change only for those who have never paid a single penny for it, because that social contract begins with the first paycheck.<\/font><\/p>\n

Medicare is the only way to provide health care for older Americans that works.  Like Social security, it is a social contract, like Social Security and the same reasoning applies.  The only way to fix Medicare it to revamp our entire healthcare system to base it on care, not profit.  Medicare for all would be an excellent fix.<\/font><\/p>\n

Rachel and Chris Hayes discuss this and the left\u2019s consternation with Obama\u2019s failure to fight, despite the extreme unpopularity of Republican demands.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

I think our best chance for the future is to move the Democratic Party back to the left.  That will take time and effort, rooting out DINOs from the grass roots bottom up and replacing them with progressive liberals.  The deck is stacked against third parties, and if we teach Democrats another lesson, like those who stayed home last year did, my butt is going to need new O-rings.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday evening Barack Obama will be giving a speech on the budget, and although I refuse to pass judgment until after I actually hear what he has to say, Republicans have made such great gains for their draconian policies, I would be crazy, if I did not look to it with fear.  For me, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}