Jaime Harrison tweet: Republicans keep telling us they want to cut your Social Security and Medicare

[IcyPeas]

Republicans keep telling us they want to cut your Social Security and Medicare. Believe them.

Link to tweet

[SheilaAnn]

1. How many repubs collect SS and Medicare? Sounds dumb to me. n/t

[Meadowoak]

5. The repubes will blame Biden if it happens.

[onecaliberal]

6. They're already on the campaign trail saying WE are going to take it away.

[LymphocyteLover]

34. you mean they are saying Dems will take it away?

[onecaliberal]

35. Yes.

[PatrickforB]

11. Simple. Do the same thing corporations do when negotiating with their unions.

Say, "We have to cut wages because profits, blah, blah, blah, but if you vote for this we will grandfather you in - you won't lose anything. Just these people coming after you."

That's how.

[mahina]

25. Yeah young people are not having that either

[not fooled]

29. Yes--plus

they've set up the long con by telling younger generations Social Security won't be there for them anyway, it's doomed, etc.

'Muricans are woefully uninformed and misinformed.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

31. I'm 74 years old, and when I was in my twenties

co-workers my age would frequently say Social Security wouldn't be there for us. I told them they were wrong. I was correct.

Republicans have tried to get rid of SS every since it started. It does seem as if none of them collect it, or none of them are on Medicare.

It's also amazing to what extent those who don't think SS will be around for them seem to make any effort to save for their old age. And I'm not talking about the desperately poor who already live in poverty, but the reasonably well-off. I blame a lot of that on the fact that we are surrounded by ads telling us explicitly and implicitly that we will be happier, better looking, have the love we crave, if only we purchase stuff. So people mindlessly spend, with no thought to the long term.

[skylucy]

2. Dems need to keep hammering on this.

[FakeNoose]

3. The Repukes want to cut our benefits so they can STEAL them

Let's call it what it really is.

[SergeStorms]

9. Well, the wealthy are going on four years now....

since they've had a massive tax cut. I mean, they're the job creators, right?


It all trickles down on the little people. A rising tide floats all boats, but the view is a helluva' lot better from the upper deck of a mega-yacht. Our little row boats get swallowed up in the prop-wash of their floating palaces.

[calimary]

13. This talking point is wrong by its very premise.

A rising tide DOE NOT lift or float all boats.

The boats with bottoms and sides full of holes cuz the owner couldn’t afford the upkeep will stay on the bottom.

The boats tethered to a stationary post or anchored in place won’t float. Not if the water rises higher than the ropes that tie them to the bottom or the post.

The boats sitting on docks or sloping shorelines or beaches will be okay, I guess, unless the surf is too big and powerful, with surges formidable enough to wash them out to sea, and possibly lose them (which means they may well sink if they’re bashed around badly enough).

Fucking Arthur Laffer repeated that to me during an interview back when I was still working. Cocky and sure of himself, especially when armed with a cutesy slogan like that. I wasn’t fast enough on my feet to present any rebuttal like the ones I just offered above. But I DID notice the glib response, and how easily and swiftly he hauled it out. Like one of those Chatty Cathy dolls my generation wanted for Christmas - with a collection of statements recorded and ready for playback every time you pulled her “talk-to-me” string. An old standby “answer” that bounced the meter so there wasn’t any dead air, while repeating and thus reinforcing the basic messaging.

I remember thinking “whoa - a male Chatty Cathy!” Or maybe that’d be a “Chatty Charlie” doll.

I was going to say “Chatty Chuckie” doll but thought it evoked too much horror movie. But maybe since what it’d be referring to, then calling it a “Chatty Chuckie” doll would be appropriate!

[Walleye]

27. This reminds me of when I realized how wrong that catchphrase is

It was a really cold winter and I was standing by a small marina on a river in the Eastern shore of Maryland. The tide had gone out and had frozen and it stayed out for a day or two. I watched as the tide started coming back in and cracking the ice. The boats were tied to a small dock and two of them were frozen solid to the bottom. Other boats started coming up with the tide. These two sunk awash with ice and slush. (The Boston whaler by the way popped right up out of there after looking like it was going to sink.)How do you think of that now every time I hear that rising tide raises all boats crap

[calimary]

32. Cuz it's glib and sounds good, and most people will just swallow it while, without thinking.

NEVER forget the promotional announcement fucking limbaugh ran, over and over:

“You don’t even have to think! I’LL do the thinking FOR you!”

First time I heard that, my blood ran cold. I knew what he was trying to do. And I knew it’d work.

[msongs]

4. joe biden needs to be leader on this issue, out there and pounding away. would be great for both

his ratings and getting people excited to vote. a crusade to save ss/medicare

[jaxexpat]

7. When evil people tell you they want to promote evil,

they're telling the truth. When weak people foretell doom, don't give them the power they crave. Doom is their comfort.

[Wounded Bear]

8. K & R...nt

[AllaN01Bear]

10. too bad we cant cut their salaries , fancy perks. and so on.

[ancianita]

12. I hope he tweets every day from here on out. Go, Jaime!

[WarGamer]

14. Don't want to spray cold water here... but the WaPo fact checker gives this accusation 4 Pinocchios

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/27/false-claim-that-senate-republicans-plan-end-social-security-medicare/

This is yet another example in which Democrats strain to conjure up a nonexistent GOP plan regarding Social Security and Medicare. Murray earns Four Pinocchios.

And it's not just Washington Post... EVERY MAJOR fact checker has also debunked the claim.

Politifact:

There is an element of truth to the claim, in that the plan from Scott has those elements. But the claim goes awry by framing it as a plan endorsed by Republicans. Far from it. Scott has said it represents his ideas, not a platform.

And McConnell has explicitly said the two areas the Democrats hammered on will not be part of any GOP agenda.

For a statement that contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, our rating is Mostly False.

DU is mostly a fact filled island away from woo and nonsense... I appreciate all the intelligent people here and don't believe people should be misled.

[thesquanderer]

19. OTOH, this sounds a bit more ominous...

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/gop-plans-catastrophic-default-democrats/

[not fooled]

30. They've hated SS and Medicare since their inception

Ending these programs has been their goal for generations. It's well documented. The WaPo story lacks context.

[lame54]

15. That's a toughie because they lie about everything

[raging moderate]

16. So could we say that SOME Republicans want to take them away?

Maybe we could get rid of a few of the worst ones.

[WarGamer]

17. Scott and Johnson for example...

[DownriverDem]

18. After Roe

folks would have to be brain dead to not believe them.

[NBachers]

20. "Scott has said it represents his ideas, not a platform." Oh, well, that makes it OK then.

[PXR-5]

21. Most of my neighbors are republicans and they

want SS severely cut and/ or eliminated.

Most of them performed work in all cash businesses, or owned their own business or even farmed.

So they are not eligible, so to them it's just for "coastal elites" or poor folk.

[raging moderate]

22. I am not eligible for Social Security. I am glad some people are eligible!

Last edited Wed Oct 12, 2022, 09:18 AM - Edit history (2)

I worked for several years for the Chicago Public Library. Then I went to graduate school and became an itinerant public-school speech/language pathologist. My public-school system pension makes me ineligible for Social Security. I still want it to go to people who need it! It is already difficult to make sure that poor people have the food and shelter they need. Imagine what it would be like if Social Security were destroyed! Maybe these people should be glad that they had the opportunities to work in all cash businesses or own their own businesses or farm. I grew up very poor, the daughter of a woman who had grown up during the Great Depression, often going without food for a day or two. She had learned to keep trying no matter what, even when my father became such a violent drunkard that we all had to flee. My mother worked very hard, gradually rising from a dime store clerk to a stenographer to a legal secretary. She was proud that she managed to get at least a little food for her four children every day. We did not have a good tv, so we spent much of our leisure time reading books and writing jokes and poems together. She took us or sent us to the public library a lot, and she gave herself the equivalent of a college education by reading mostly philosophy and history and geography books from the library. Her mother had been a teacher, and one of her grandfathers had been a Methodist minister in a poor little small-town church. He and his wife chopped their own wood and raised a large garden and chickens to sell the eggs. Their hard work did not stop them from giving food and clothing to needy people, or collecting signatures on a petition to close those awful Indian schools, or entertaining Black houseguests so these good people could attend church conferences without having to sleep in the woods. Each had lost an older brother in the Civil War, fighting to free the slaves. Many of my ancestors owned dirt farms, or were skilled craftsmen with their own businesses, and they were always glad to see good fortune come to other people in other ways. Or to help other people if they needed it.

[ancianita]

23. THIS. It's the Democrats and Republicans' dividing line: caring and sharing the costs of

every American doing well. Repubs are always, "F you, got mine," and Dems are always, "Everybody in, nobody out!"

[not fooled]

33. Wow

I'd never heard that. Presumably they have saved large amounts to independently fund their retirements? Dodging the system and not paying taxes has its downside. Otherwise, with just some rudimentary tax planning, wouldn't they have been better off setting up corporations and paying themselves salaries, which would include FICA payments for SS and Medicare? I'm no expert but seems they would have been better off that way.

[Mariana]

24. Republican SS recipients don't believe THEIR benefits will ever be cut.

They figure it will be done the same way as in the past. Benefit cuts only affected younger people, by raising the retirement age - but years in the future. The hike in the OASDI tax was mostly borne by younger people as well. The people who were receiving benefits at that time weren't affected at all. Republican recipients believe any new benefit cuts will be done the same way, and they're probably right about that.

[Hotler]

26. Ask the fascist cocksuckers about the IOU's. The money has be stolen already.

Social Security to Start Cashing IOUs

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-security-to-start-cashing-ious/

[Ford_Prefect]

28. Congressional Republicans have Social Security and Medicare squarely in their sights.

“Social Security and Medicare eligibility changes, spending caps, and safety-net work requirements are among the top priorities for key House Republicans who want to use next year’s debt-limit deadline to extract concessions from Democrats,” Bloomberg Law reports. “The four Republicans interested in serving as House Budget Committee chairman in the next Congress said in interviews that next year’s deadline to raise or suspend the debt ceiling is a point of leverage if their party can win control of the House in the November midterm elections.”

When the GOP tells you they plan to do a thing, believe them. This ain't your grandfather's GOP with a sense of public duty to govern. The Gingrich party has 3 main goals. To make government benefit their financially elite patrons and clients as fully as possible through tax cuts and by hobbling federal authority to oversee and regulate, along with destroying the New Deal and Great Society programs as thoroughly and quickly as possible so that no ordinary citizen in need may claim any benefit at all. 3rdly they intend to rewrite law and edit the Constitution to establish a fascist state in which a perverse from of Dominionist Christianity becomes the national religion and the measure of law and culture.

They HAVE been saying this for 30 years, and louder and more explicitly in this century.

[Evolve Dammit]

36. If you're swimming in cash as many Repukes are, SS means nothing. For rest, it's a lifeline.

They don't like "lifelines." They like suffering and sucking you dry and indentured. I fucking hate the MAGATS. and the entire GOP at this point.

[lambchopp59]

37. Careful what you wish for, rethugs.

I've been hearing for half a century how Republicans plan to make cuts. Cuts, cuts cut cut cut.
Gee, I agree. It's time to cut their positions. They want "small government", sure, let's make it absolutely miniscule. Eliminate congress, and pass bills by direct popular public vote. Cut the excessive waste of politician's salaries, benefits and their golden parachute retirement plans. It's our money, and I say they've been abusing it on pork long enough.
Rick Scott is the wealthiest congressman, no wonder he can be such a crass scrooge.
These "representatives" don't even know anyone who is dependent on the social programs WE PAID INTO. It made me so damn mad when GWB started on the "privatize" kick because for certain that translated to "steal".

[Snackshack]

38. They don't want to cut SS/MC

They want to end them altogether.