The debate about Social Security is being muddled with so much disinformation. Even many of the pundits seem confused and speak garble.
The arguments to change Social Security are vapid, insincere, and blatantly false.
DISCUSS THIS WE MUST. TIRELESSLY.
Protecting our Social Security benefits as they are, IS the line in the sand.
We must work as hard presenting the empirical evidence, being available to answer questions, and patiently let those in our sphere of influence, the real, independent thinking Americans, reach their conclusions.
PG Peterson is releasing a DVD to fight against our Social Security benefits and Congress is poised to do so. This ship is going down if we don't push back hard..
It's time to say ENOUGH.
Tell Congress: "Keep your hands off OUR hard earned money and pay back the billions you borrowed and may be still borrowing from US, our hard earned Social Security Deductions, to fund wars, tax cuts, and heaven knows what else."
If we lose this battle, we will lose much, much more thereafter. Social safety nets worldwide are under attack. What kind of world do we want to leave for our children/grandchildren?
This diary and those linked will provide you with empirical evidence and a simple analogy even your children will understand to dispel the key lies being touted by both sides of the aisle.
- Social Security does not affect the deficit. It has it's own Trust Fund filled with our money that is deducted from our paychecks throughout our lives. It is solvent. Sadly, it has also been pillaged by BushCo and others to pay for things like war and tax cuts.
- Social Security will not go bust unless the federal government tries get out of paying US back the billions it borrowed from US. It's OUR money. Again, we are the people (and our employers who matched the payments) that paid into the Social Security Trust Fund from each of our paychecks. No federal revenues are used to pay for our Social Security benefits.
- Paying back the billions of dollars of OUR money to the Social Security Trust will affect the governments balance sheet. The payback installments are due to begin, which is why BushCo had a cut off date for the tax cuts they initiated. The Bush tax cuts are the root cause for most of our deficit, as well as the monies the government owes to our Social Security Trust Fund. These are the facts.
- If the government honors it's commitment to pay back the monies it borrowed to pay for the wars, tax cuts, and whatever else (Blackwater?), we get OUR money back and Social Security will be properly funded, as it was planned to be for decades, with no hitches.
- There are huge, monied powers that began fighting to dissolve this and all social safety nets as soon as FDR signed the law in 1935.
As my wise, wonderful Nana used to begin a teaching moment. They don't make women like her anymore, really...a 4'11" force to be dealt with. Anyway,
MARK MY WORDS: All social security programs world-wide are presently under HUGE attack from these monied powers.
KNOW THE POWERS BEHIND A DRIVE TO DISRUPT SOCIAL SECURITY
Also, you have to keep a truth in mind. Social Security spending is NOT, I repeat, NOT a federal deficit line item. Once again, it is a separate account that has been designed to pay for the baby boomers retirement expenses. The purveyors of disinformation include Social Security as a federal deficit issues in all their charts and discussions. This is a lie. Social Security payments made to retirees are NOT a line item on the federal budget. The surplus accumulated while the boomers worked for 40 years is enough to cover the retirement benefits of the baby boomers.
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation is at the forefront of spreading disinformation and scaring the begeebers out of the uninformed who are being convinced that Social Security and Medicare will put their grandchildren into debt.
http://www.pgpf.org/...
David Walker became the face of the PGP Foundation in 2008. Who is David Walker:
...Walker served as Comptroller General of the United States and head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) from 1998 to 2008. Appointed by President Bill Clinton, his tenure as the federal government's chief auditor spanned both Democratic and Republican administrations. While at the GAO, Walker embarked on a Fiscal Wake-up Tour[1]...
In 2008, Walker was personally recruited by Peter G. Peterson, co-founder of the Blackstone Group, and former Secretary of Commerce under Richard Nixon, to lead his new foundation. The Foundation distributed the documentary film, I.O.U.S.A.[4], which follows Walker and Robert Bixby, director of the Concord Coalition, around the nation, as they engage Americans in town-hall style meetings, along with luminaries such as Warren Buffett, Alan Greenspan, Paul Volker and Robert Rubin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
There it is. Our supposed Democratic voices joining forces with our GOP opponents. Billionaires funding disinformation DVD documentaries, town hall meetings around the country, getting HUGE amounts of media attention, all while touting changing/disbanding our social safety nets because of their pretend altar:
The Federal Deficit.
What, WHAT? The obvious question arises loudly:
Where were these voices while BushCo spent out of control and robbed.. ahem..borrowed the Social Security Trust Fund surpluses to fight wars, build privately held armies/spy agencies, and provide tax cuts to our most wealthy...well, actually to the billionaires you see listed above and in the documentary below? These crack pots give double speak and whole new meaning:
Evil and Money, working in concert, are NOT good for American citizens.
The hypocrisy makes my head spin at a violent rate of speed! Honestly, the AUDACITY IS FREAKIN MIND BOGGLINGJ. Where's our audacity, fellow kossacks?
Again, this is a world-wide effort to disband social safety nets and any/all social democracies. Members of like-minded, anti-social safety net thinkers surround President Obama. You know who they are.
Here's PG Peterson Foundation's frightening documentary link. 32 minutes, I.O.U.S.A.
can be viewed here (the embed has been disabled). This is what is being shown to the elderly, in evangelical churches, in GOP town halls, and handed to others to show at their socials. It's the Deficit/Social Security connection lie. They are not connected:
http://www.youtube.com/...
Please grab a brewski or whatever makes pain more tolerable and watch this pinnacle of propaganda. PLEASE.
This is the voice of the opposition. The lies of the opposition. The propaganda of the opposition.
AGAIN: The trick they use is to include entitlement spending as part of the federal budget/deficit. This is the lie. We all pay a portion of our paychecks to Social Security and Medicare. These funds go directly into their respective trust funds, which are specifically designed to remain solvent UNLESS the government borrows OUR money, which they did, and tries to get away with not paying us back.
The billionaire propagandists don't want to pay us back. Why? Because the federal government will need to raise revenue. How does the government raise revenue? Via taxation. The billionaire propagandists don't want the tax cuts for the rich to end.
The other lie? No, we will not have to raise taxes across the board. We simply need to tax incomes over $250,000 at the same levels they paid prior to Ronald Reagan's tax cuts.
Here's the chart, one more time. As the propagandists state, our deficit is terrifying; therefore, doesn't this chart indicate that we need to immediately return to the tax policies of Nixon/Ford/Carter? Or, at the very lease, the tax rates under Clinton? Both with a caveat that it only applies to those making more than $250,000? And, I would like to further propose that those earning less than $45,000/family of 4+ pay no federal taxes, just the SS and Medicare payments into their respective trust funds:
Here's today's deficit truth:
Began this diary to include info provided in comments on yesterdays diary:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
It fast became apparent that we may all need to brush up on the origins of today's deficit hawk arguments, especially the ones that are attacking Social Security.
IF YOU LISTEN TO THE IOUSA PROPAGANDA IN THE VID ABOVE, YOU WILL FIND MANY DISTORTIONS, PIECES OF DISINFORMATION, AND BLATANT LIES.
Maybe it could be fun, a sort of Where's Waldo, to see how many there are