From Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/economy/american-people-fight-obamas-treacherous-cuts-social-security-and-medicare
The attack on our most basic economic rights may open a new chapter in the post-crisis narrative.
By Lynn Stuart Parramore
April 15, 2013
Actually, there is no division; not among progressives, nor among the American people. The vast majority, left, right and in-between, have repeatedly made it clear that they do not want cuts to either of these vital programs. A CBS News poll conducted last month shows that 80 percent of Americans, regardless of political affiliation, opposed cutting spending on Medicare to reduce the budget deficit, while 79 percent were against cutting Social Security for that reason.
The people don’t want the cuts, and the facts don’t support them. There are certainly no economic excuses: The federal deficit politicans howl about is shrinking, as none other than Goldman Sachs’ chief economist has attested. And even if it wasn’t, Social Security doesn’t affect it – a fact that many Americans have copped onto despite the best efforts of politicians to deceive them. Clearly, in a time of growing economic inequality, there is no justification for taking more money out of the hands of the elderly and the vulnerable.
Let’s be blunt: The only folks in favor of the cuts are those serving the interests of financiers who seek to privatize retirement accounts on which they can charge fees and those among the wealthy who don’t wish to pay taxes. This group includes a large swath of politicians and media pundits we’ve been hearing from. And yet despite all the smoke and mirrors – the phony budget crisis, discredited deficit hysteria, the rhetoric of “shared sacrifice,” cuts cloaked in wonky language like “chained CPI,” and excuses about the need to play “3-dimensional chess,” the American public has not been fooled. We know that Big Money has bought and paid for Obama’s budget (which, by the way, also rescues the Pentagon from cuts even as it throws seniors overboard). We know that the President is not representing the will of those who elected him. How do we know? Because Obama himself told us.
Back in 2008, Obama, the “Yes we can!” candidate, gave voters his word that he would not use trickery to cut the social insurance programs hard-working Americans rely upon: “John McCain’s campaign has suggested that the best answer for the growing pressures on Social Security might be to cut cost-of-living adjustments or raise the retirement age,” said the would-be president. “Let me be clear: I will not do either.”
Obama lied to us. So what are we going to do about it?
Continue reading at: http://www.alternet.org/economy/american-people-fight-obamas-treacherous-cuts-social-security-and-medicare
