Sell-Out Alert: 9 Democrats Already Caving to GOP On Social Security Cuts

[avaistheone1]

20. “It’s a horrible negotiating position”

said Warren Gunnels, senior policy advisor to Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-VT, who has been appointed to the 2013 federal budget conference committee, where the debate is taking shape.

“You hear these people saying, ‘We have to be the adults at the table and the Republicans don’t negotiate. Aren’t we reasonable?’” he continued. “A more reasonable position is a majority of Americans don’t want Social Security, Medicare and Medicare cut at all. Why don’t we have one political party represent what a majority of people want?”

October’s government shutdown and threatened debt default was disruptive and hurt the economy. But what is emerging is an entirely different drama, one that could shape the quality of tens of millions of people’s final decades. Most Americans do not have much in retirement savings and will live on Social Security now averaging $1,200 a month, and receive their healthcare under Medicare. Similarly, nearly two-thirds of Medicaid recipients are children from poor homes or adults with disabilities...SNIP


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The National Journal, a leading conservative publication, did a nationwide poll in the first week of the shutdown and tilted its questions to try to show public support for the GOP’s intransigence and for cutting entitlements. What it didn’t put on its website but was buried in its results (see page 4) was that 76 percent said Social Security should be cut “not at all,” as opposed to cut “a lot” or “some.” Eighty-one percent said Medicare should be cut “not at all.” And 60 percent replied “not at all” to cutting Medicaid. These results tracked two other National Journal polls done in 2012 and other national surveys.

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/26/sell_out_alert_9_democrats_already_caving_to_gop_on_social_security_cuts_partner/