San José, CA - The recent federal debt limit deal passed by the House and Senate and signed into law by president Obama promises at least $2.1 trillion in spending cuts and lower interest payments over the next ten years. This deal did not include any savings from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or from restoring higher taxes for the rich. It was a victory for the Tea Party-backed Republicans and benefits the rich and Wall Street. At the same time programs serving poor and working people will be the target for cuts and the deal opens the door for cuts in Social Security and Medicare.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost more than $1.5 trillion over the next ten years. The Bush tax cuts for the rich will cost about $600 billion dollars over the same period of time. Ending the wars and restoring the taxes on the rich would save more than $2 trillion, and, including savings from lower interest payments, would save about $2.6 trillion, more than the recent debt limit deal.
Let’s be clear. The real issue is not the deficit, it is about keeping taxes low for the rich and continuing to fund our present and future wars, while cutting programs that serve poor and working people. Social Security and Medicare did not cause the federal debt. In fact ever since the FICA payroll tax that pays for Social Security and Medicare was raised in the 1980s, these two programs have run surpluses and have helped to pay for the wars and tax cuts for the rich.
Half of all workers have no private pension plans, so Social Security is their only guarantee of income security when they retire. For more than a quarter of seniors who are lower-income, Social Security provides over 90% of their retirement income. About 40% of seniors have no private health insurance, and would suffer the most from any cuts in the Medicare.
Unfortunately, the fact is that the vast majority of politicians in Washington D.C. are more beholden to Wall Street and/or the Tea Party than they are to the interests of poor and working people and seniors. What is needed to be build a mass movement for economic justice that can unite workers, both union and non-union, and oppressed nationality communities, especially African Americans, Chicanos, and Latinos, who have the least income and wealth are who are hit hardest by cuts in government services. Students and youth and seniors are especially vulnerable to these cuts. We need to demand that the politicians bring our troops home now, end the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and protect Social Security, Medicare, and other government programs.
End the Wars!
Tax the Rich!
No cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and other programs for poor and working people!
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Anonymous
Well , Well, Well, To to first comment with name "Anonymous" who didn't even have the guts to put your own name on the comment that you posted!
YOU KNOW, PIMPING OFF POOR PEOPLE IS WRONG! And if You really,truely, in your heart believe in the comment you just made, YOU WOULD HAVE PUT YOUR NAME ON YOUR COMMENT WHEN YOU FIRST POSTED IT!!! DON'T COME BACK NOW AND TRY TO COMMENT BACK, WITH YOUR NAME CAUSE ITS TOO LATE!
You may have lived with this type of thinking all your life and now you see that this is not the way to go
Thats why, I don't even buy that you even Believe any of the crap you just posted!
Please don't be scared of the people's movement,
We are here to To help.
My boss has encouraged me to
My boss has encouraged me to make commentary on some of these articles because she thinks I have interesting thoughts on it.
For one, I do agree that we should tax the rich- working in the financial sector has opened up my eyes to the wide gap between the amount that the upper and middle classes pay in comparison to what the lower class pays. However, the idea that we should not cut from social programs is quite discomforting. At my job, on a day to day basis, we encounter women and men who survive solely because they have a card for their unemployment, child support, and SS benefits; worst of all, they seem quite satisfied with it, instead on actively searching for a job. Now, I would not mind an increase in my taxes if I were certain that people who DESERVE these benefits are the only recipients of them- but the reality is that you have women spurting out babies in excessive amounts because they are anchoring themselves onto goverment benefits in order to avoid real work.
Do you think that is fair to those of us who work hard for our money? I do not think so.
My boss, she is such an idealist- she and I had a brief debate about this- she brought up the point that it is our humane responsibility to care for others and that increasing taxes for social welfare programs is a way of doing so. She says that the "imperialistic system" we have put in place has forced the vast majority of these people to rely on benefits, therefore we are responsible as a collective for the masses; I just think she is an unrealistic communist who believes way too much in people- I for the most part agree with all that she says because it sounds a lot like what I am reading here and there is logic to it, but I am definitely not in compliance with the thought of paying for another's survival if they do not work for it.
If we had no social security,
If we had no social security, we would probably save more, that is true, but that's a really bad thing in a consumer driven economy.
tax the rich
We don't primarily elect public officials to manage the governments finances. We elect people to establish the common good! The job of paying for that common good rests on the shoulders of the citizens who have the money to pay for it. The government can hire people to manage the finances and access the cost that will be borne by individual citizens as each is able to carry the burden. And, equally importantly, we need very strict laws that will punish those who violate the public trust placed on them by those who elected them. No more Nixons who arrange for his successor to pardon them!
whats wrong with keeping what
whats wrong with keeping what you work for? if i work harder or smarter why should i be punished for doing the right thing. if i take a 100,000 dollor life insurance policy out and die, and my wife can't manage on it she can't ask for another 100,000 dollor but unempolyment insurance people who payed for 26 weeks now get 2 years 4 times as much as they payed for. why look for a job or take less if they can make more collecting unemployment ins. if you train a rat to get food only in one area it will stop looking elseware to find it on it's own.
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