I'm worried SS and Medicare WILL be ended.

[LiberalLoner]

The arguments I am hearing from the right are that, because of the darn Liberals (everything that goes wrong is always our fault) the country is dangerously bankrupt and we will all die immediately (because of a sudden economic collapse due to the debt crisis) unless we immediately end these programs and pay the debt.

It is too similar to the arguments we heard in support of the bank bailout. "Pay us now or everyone dies!" And it worked, damn it! And I think it will work this time too. Damn it.

And, we need to sell the gold in Ft. Knox. And we need to sell all Federal land to investors right now (excluding military bases, I'm guessing.)

I suppose the next step will be emminent domain. Seizing property (only that owned by relatively poor individuals, never the fat cats because the government works for them after all) and selling it to investors for pennies on the dollar "to settle the debt."

Oh and let's keep cutting taxes. With SS and Medicare cut, all the old people are flooding the job markets, willing to work for just enough to buy a day's worth of beans and rice. There aren't enough jobs now! So we have to let rich people keep more of their money so they will give us more jobs!

Oh, lowering the tax rate to zero on the top 1% didn't create any jobs? The crisis is even worse now? Well, the rich need more money and then they will create jobs. Let's seize the property of everyone with a net worth under $200,000 and give it to the rich people. After all, they are far more deserving of the property, and will know what to do with it to save our nation from this terrible jobs crisis.

And we must do something to end this homeless problem! All these bodies littering the streets after having died of hypothermia. Can't we use them in some way to make a profit? Oh, wait, I watched this wonderful, inspirational movie once called "Soylent Green"...

[HillbillyBob]

1. If they do end SS and medicare..quite a few will have nothing to lose

and desperate people do drastic things. Ask Marie Antoinette......

[LiberalLoner]

4. On rare occasions there have been bloody revolutions, but it seems to me

looking at the world and looking at history, more often there are years and years (or centuries even) of unthinkable misery for the masses and unfathomable wealth for the very few.

[alsame]

2. If not now, then as soon as the GOP attains all

three branches. Destroying SS and Medicare has been a long term goal, they will do it as soon as they can.

[LiberalLoner]

3. Yes, they will. And they (and their supporters) will be saying they had to do

this in order to save SS and Medicare. And they will believe it, too. At least their supporters will.

[alsame]

7. Exactly. And by the time people begin hurting because these

programs are gone it will be too late, at least for one generation.

[LiberalLoner]

8. And the meme will be "it's all because of the Liberals. So if you ever see anyone

asking for better working conditions or better pay, kill them because they are a Liberal! Getting my hand cut off in the meat machine and ground up with the hamburger is okay by me because that's what made America great!"

[Marr]

11. Or that they "had to" to save the country from the Republicans not raising the debt ceiling,

or to save a few months' worth of unemployment benefits, or whatever the paper-thin excuse is that cycle. The GOP doesn't need to control the government for this to happen, because the same interests that own the GOP own most of the Democratic Party as well. It just takes longer for the toadies to set up their political cover when it's the Democrats in power.

[HappyMe]

5. I'm 53 and have little hope of ss or medicare.

It will be gone before I'm 65.

[LiberalLoner]

6. Even those of us who have assets, or retain our health to the point where we can work into our

70's, will always live with the threat of our health disappearing suddenly (heart attack, cancer, etc.) and whatever assets we have, not being enough to pay for medical care.

When SS and Medicare are eliminated, every single one of us (aside from multimillionaires and billionaires) will have to live our lives in fear that we will outlive our assets. That we will be bankrupted by medical costs and therefore be out on the streets. Heck, right now all of us live with the possibility we could be out on the streets. (Except, again, those with an unusually high level of assets.)

It dimishes the quality of life a great deal to have to live with this fear hanging over you at all times. And it's not an unrealistic fear. It's something that is actually likely to happen.

[Autumn]

9. You are right to be worried.

They might not end it as we know it, but their agenda is clear as glass. In their opinion Grandma and Grandpa are living too comfortable on that pittance from SS, and that money can be better spent elsewhere. Tax breaks for corporations ,millionaires, endless wars. We are all fucking leeches as far as they are concerned.

[salinen]

10. You shouldn't worry

May 21 is the last day of everything.

[LiberalLoner]

12. I wouldn't mind being raptured right about now. At least then I wouldn't

have to worry about how the government is currently stealing our savings from the Thrift Savings Plan (will they replace it? Dunno.) and how they will probably decide we can't afford to provide health care for dependents anymore or retired military and we can't afford to pay those retiree military pensions either.

If they do away with SS and Medicare, then they can do away with military pensions. They are already reducing Federal pensions (or talking about it, can't remember which) and if they do...I just wonder at what point there will be a critical mass of people pushing back hard enough to effectively stop this.

[pipi_k]

13. Well there's a new one on me...

I didn't realize that the only people getting SS and Medicare were Democrats.

OK, so I can imagine some changes happening with SS and Medicare, but does anyone really believe that the Republican party...so good at knowing what to do and what to say to get votes...is stupid enough to destroy itself?

That doing away with SS and Medicare would be the end of the Republican party...


I dunno...maybe I'm just naive for not buying into the Chicken Little scenario here?

:shrug:

[LiberalLoner]

14. No, I appreciate your voice in this discussion. I hope with all my heart I am

wrong in being so worried.

I just think this is being sold much the same way as the bank bailout was sold. "Do this or the nation dies RIGHT NOW." So we did it, even knowing that it would have to be paid for on our backs, out of our pockets. (Just for the record, I wrote my congresscritters begging them not to do it.)

The way this is being framed in conservative circles and in the media is, "If we do not eliminate SS and Medicare, we will fall into the brink of immediate economic collapse." I was listening to Morning Joe and they were selling this as, "Painful cuts must be made right now or we will be like Greece, and we will fall into the abyss. And when that happens, EVERYTHING stops. EVERYONE will suffer enormous harm." They didn't spell out what the harm would be, they just left that to our imaginations.

It is being accepted that anyone who has a brain, sees that not to cut spending drastically right now would lead to all of us dying immediately. More or less.

The military budget is never discussed. The assumption is there, that wars pay for themselves. That meme was put out before the Iraq war and has become standard belief for the majority of Americans. So there can be no discussion of cutting the military budget, because, duh, everyone knows military forces and the wars, pay for themselves.

Same with tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy and oil companies. Everyone knows that cutting taxes increases revenues and stimulates the economy and adds jobs. So we have to keep cutting taxes more and more on the richest among us. But those poor people, they aren't paying their fair share, so it's high time we make them carry their fair tax burden!

So what spending needs to be drastically cut? Any money going into social programs. Programs conservatives have hated since the first day they were put into place.

The Republicans will not punish their leaders for eliminating SS and Medicare. They will instead praise them.

Show me one Republican (outside of Newt, who got spanked hard for it) who doesn't like the Ryan plan to end Medicare.

Show me one Republican supporter who is not in favor of the Ryan plan to end Medicare.