Hey Lindsey, Social Security And Medicare Are NOT Fuckin Entitlements

[johnlennon_shallrise]

I'm so sick of this jackass and his bullshit that he spews on television, when he was asked this week about his signing of the Norquist pledge on taxes he actually responded with this....."I want to buy down debt and cut rates to create jobs, but I will violate the pledge, long story short, for the good of the country, only if Democrats will do entitlement reform."

I am considering sending this off to the Senator's office and would like any input or spelling corrections that any of you on this thread might suggest before I do so

Dear Senator Graham,

This past week I happened to see your interview on the news show This Week on ABC and you said a few things that I really don't quite understand and I am really quite confused and disgusted with your statements and I am therefore writing to you to ask you the following questions and make a few simple suggestions to help solve this problem once and for all. You stated that you want to buy down debt? cut rates? on what... buy down how Lindsey???? In other words you want to fucking leave everything as is and reform entitlements, also known as Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. Isn't that what the majority of the country just voted against?

You bastards have FORCED me to put money aside every paycheck for the past 42 years now of my working life and I am about to be "entitled" to receive my government GUARANTEED investment but now you want to change the rules in the middle of your game and take them away because you were poor stewards of our collective finances? I don't think so Senator. I guess you had your head so far up it that you didn't get the message of this election which IS that Social Security and Medicare are not entitlements. Entitlements means WE have paid into the system and are "entitled" to receive our government GUARANTEED investment! If you want to fix social security in a heartbeat Senator simply eliminate the wage base limit that is currently in place. If the working poor can pay the taxman on every single dollar they make, then so can the high wage earners and corporations in America. Also while your at it, go ahead and increase federal income taxes on the wealthy by 4% while either maintaining or lowering the current tax rates for the middle-class and take away the perks for you and your fellow politicians and we will start paying yourselves an hourly wage and ONLY when you are actually on the job and then also put into place a ban on you and the rest of your cronies from having ANY contact with lobbyists and PACs. And since you want to do these "cuts" so damn bad Senator, let's go ahead and start with the military budget which is so obscenely bloated that it should be a national disgrace.

The bottom line Senator is that this crap you are spewing to us is the same old garbage your party has been spewing and this time around WE the people ARE NOT going to accept your statement that you are going to violate a pledge you signed in direct contravention to the responsibility of the office you were elected to if we all do what you say! So why don't you stop all of this pettifogging and come to the halls with some real solutions to these issues such as the one's I have proposed to you here?

[Walk away]

1. Haven't you heard? Today they started calling them "Drivers" as in....

"Cuts to programs driving our debt" or "Drivers of our debt". I have heard it by three different pukes today including Boehner. Not one interviewer asked them what "Drivers" were.

[cbayer]

2. If you want to be taken seriously, I suggest the following:

Remove the following words-

fucking
bastards
head so far up it
crap

In addition, I would suggest you stick to single question marks and avoid caps.

[Recursion]

3. Sure they are

What do you think "entitlement" means?

[xtraxritical]

10. Exactly they're called entitlements because you paid into them

and you're ENTITLED to them. The term morphed into a misused pejorative under Reagan along with his "welfare queen" bs.

[Filibuster Harry]

4. And ask him why is it that any member of congress is in his words "entitled" to social security

benefits just for working one term? I would also ask him why did they rob the social security trust fund and not want to pay it back? But his rich croanies are entitled to 15%? And finally, why is he and his R friends
slaves to Grover and why afraid of being primaried stops them from governing?

[Sekhmets Daughter]

5. But of course they are.

If you have been paying for the Social Security and Medicare benefits of those already retired, you are entitled to collect those same benefits when you retire.

What is criminal about Graham et al looking to cut benefits is that we've been contributing to the care and upkeep of his parents for years.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

6. If you want to be taken seriously,

I would suggest you read up on just how Social Security works. It is not a government guaranteed Investment.

[JDPriestly]

7. The Social Security is structured so that there is a trust

fund that is supposed to help our children provide for baby boomers as they retire. The Reagan administration raised payroll (or Social Security) taxes to adequately fund that trust fund to provide for my war generation as well as the baby boomers.

Under the statute, the Secretary of the Treasury is in charge of handling that trust fund. The US government, of course, owes money to that trust fund because the trust fund money is in whole or part invested in the Treasury notes.

The Bush administration noted that the Clinton administration had balanced the annual budget and that the Clinton policies might lead to a very low or no deficit after a time.

Republicans like to complain about deficits when Democrats are in the White House, but Republicans like to increase deficits when they themselves are in the White House. This is a pattern that you can see on charts.

So, Bush started the completely unnecessary, cruel War in Iraq, killed a lot of our soldiers as well as Iraqis AND spent a lot of money on war material WITHOUT RAISING TAXES.

In other words, Bush fought his stupid war on borrowed money -- much of it our Social Security trust fund money, I presume.

Republicans hate Social Security. That is why they stole the money from the government, handed it to their friends like Halliburton and the erstwhile Blackwater, etc. That was in part, our Social Security money they gave their friends.

We seniors are entitled to be repaid that money. Many of us have no other or very little other source of income especially now that interest rates are virtually imperceptible on savings accounts and other investment vehicles safe for seniors.

Sorry, but Social Security is our right. We paid for it. We saved the money above and beyond what it cost for us to care for our parents and grandparents.

The rich got tax cuts. We got Social Security cuts. That cannot stand.

The rich need to pay back what they owe seniors.

And if you are younger and you think it should not be paid back, then I hope that, if your parents are still alive, neither they nor you get Alzheimers or some form of dementia or become helpless in their old age.

Without generous Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits, nursing homes are not going to be able to take care of you or your parents unless you or your parents have a lot of money.

That means that our, your parents either suffer alone as we and they age or children stay home to provide the 24-hour a day care for their parents that very elderly, very sick people need.

Social Security is a necessity. We paid for it. We paid extra to cover our own retirement beyond that of our parents and grandparents. We are entitled to our Social Security benefits. So are you.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

8. The Trust Fund

is the largest holder of US debt...$2.67 trillion in fact.

For that reason alone the rich should be taxed at 50% Their tax breaks led to all this debt.

I never said you were not entitled to your benefits, I believe wholeheartedly in SS and Medicare, although the latter needs some serious reform. However, it is not an investment and there is nothing within the legislation that guarantees benefits. Why else do you think the republicans feel they can attack it with such impunity? There will be no outstanding bill due to those who have paid in for 40 or 50 years. In fact it would automatically reduce the national debt by that $2.67 trillion held in the Trust Fund.

I've been collecting SS for 2.5 years. I don't want my benefits cut, nor do I want the benefits of future generations cut. I do want people to know just what the program is, how it works and why they need to fight for their entitlements tooth and nail.

[pnwmom]

9. It damn well IS an entitlement. Everyone who's paid into it is, under the rules, ENTITLED to it.

The Rethugs want to distort the meaning of the word, but there's no reason we should.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

11. Umm yeah they are. It's your money... you paid into it. You damn well better be entitled to it

Other than the fact that the word "Entitlement" doesn't mean what you think it means... I guess you're right.

[xtraxritical]

12. See post #10 above.

[EFMcHenry]

13. Out to Destroy Social Security and Medicare.

Republicans and corporate blue dog democrats want to cut Social Security and Medicare to
1.) steal middle class payroll tax revenues(FICA) and use it to make up for the cuts to the federal income tax (ie Bush tax cuts). Another words use payroll tax for federal income tax stuff!!

2.) raise eligibility age to undermine confidence in the programs hoping people will eventually think they are not worth it and want em changed or done away with.

There is no crisis! The fiscal cliff is pure fiction. This is and always will be about destroying Social Security and Medicare.

Some may disagree but Obama is also paving the way to destroying Medicare.
How so? Well think about it....he is forcing the uninsured to buy a for-profit insurance. The affordable care act is a watered-down version of ryan care. This is why he and other democrats are willing to raise MedicareMedicare's eligibility age.

Another words these robber barons want to raise the eligibility age to delay participation or entry into Medicare thereby retaining people in the for profit private insurance system, on top of those younger people that were already driven into it.

Medicare is single payer for seniors. It doesn't get any better.

There is so much more i could say it's endless.......!!!

[hrmjustin]

14. Welcome to DU!

[dionysus]

15. sad how so many DUers haven't met a dictionary.