Reply #25: My pledge: I will not vote for any candidate who votes or agrees

[JDPriestly]

on cuts to Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare.

As far as I am concerned any candidate who agrees to such cuts or votes for them is not a Democrat, not a member of my Party. Those are my litmus test issues. And I assure I am not the only person who feels like that.

I do not get to sit in Congress and voice my opinion or vote on a daily basis. The only time I get my say is on election day in the voting booth. And I will say my piece on that day. And my piece is that I am 68 and on Social Security and I will not vote for anyone who cheats me and other retirees of our very modest benefits. We worked and saved for those benefits. Let those who squandered them pay for them with their tax money.

People who really rely on Social Security have no or very little other income. If you make a lot more than Social Security, you pay taxes on it like everyone else. But most Social Security recipients have little if any income other than Social Security. And the average Social Security payment is less than $1200 per month. It is just enough to keep a person above the poverty level.

Social Security is a minimum benefit. Let the rich pay the taxes from the discretionary money they spend on second homes, yachts, vacations, gifts and hobbies.

Where is the justice in this country.

And beyond Social Security, how can Obama face himself in the mirror knowing that African-Americans have suffered such great economic losses due to the recession. The unemployment and poverty among African-Americans has increased on Obama's watch.

I will never forget the pride on the fact of an elderly African-American man at the polling station where I worked on election day. With tears in his eyes he asked another voter to take a picture of him holding his sample ballot showing his vote for Obama.

And yet, Obama watches as Social Security COLAS for that man and others like him are sacrificed at the alter of the greed of the rich and the corporations. It is not to be believed.