Uninformed politicians and media reps waging war on the safety net for America’s seniors

Senior citizens mall walking, courtesy of freerepublic.com

In her article on Obama’s proposed budget for 2011, Jackie Calmes at the NY Times falls in line with a majority of her ignorant colleagues who repeatedly use the derogatory term “entitlement” to describe programs that benefit America’s seniors and the disabled.  

So too, Calmes appears to be oblivious to the fact that Social Security is not a part of the federal budget; it is a self-sustaining program funded by high payroll taxes on Americans throughout their working years. Furthermore, hefty Medicare premiums are deducted from the monthly Social Security checks of even low income retirees.

In addition to the above, Calmes also seems unaware that the government has raided the Social Security trust fund, supposedly in a "lock box," to support its two costly wars and avoid taxing the wealthy and closing the loopholes for large corporations.

Here’s a sample of Calmes’ uninformed article:

Typically, such spending has grown faster than inflation, but not nearly as fast as that for much bigger items whose costs are driving projections of a dangerously mounting debt — the military, the entitlement programs Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and interest on that debt.

Again, I urge seniors to mobilize and sue the United States government for violating the law and robbing the Social Security trust fund of its revenue drawn from the paychecks of American workers.

Doonesbury’s startling take on who Americans are as a people

Garry Trudeau, creator of Doonesbury

Doonesbury character Mark Slackmeyer at his mike offers a summary in Garry Trudeau’s comic strip this morning of who Americans are as a people by looking at two sets of facts:

Fact #1:           Nine years ago we were attacked. 3000 people died.

In response we started two long, bloody wars and built a vast homeland security apparatus – all at a cost of trillions!

Fact #2:           Now consider this. During those same nine years, 270,000 Americans were killed by gunfire at home.

                        Our response: We weakened our gun laws.

Thoughtful Americans would add a couple more facts:

Fact #3:           In order to pay for our costly wars and homeland security apparatus, we chose not to raise taxes or cut back on the millions we gave to support dictatorships around the world.

                        Instead of raising taxes on the wealthy or closing tax loopholes to force corporations to pay their fair share in paying for our wars, etc., the government borrowed billions and raided the Social Security trust fund.

Fact #4:           Today, America’s political leaders from both major parties are concerned about the huge deficit they’ve created by the above practices.

                        In response, 2011 budget proposals submitted by Obama feature deep cuts in the federal energy assistance program for poor people, and both Republicans and Democrats are hinting at gutting Social Security and Medicare in attempts to offset the scary deficit.

In the last panel of Gary Trudeau’s comic strip this morning, Slackmeyer’s guest on his radio show, an illegal alien, apparently from outer space, responds: “Fail. Cannot comprehend.”

Here in St. Paul, Minn. this Sunday morning, I’m with the little green creature  - I also find incomprehensible who Americans are in terms of our government’s actions since 9/11.

Call to action: America’s seniors should sue the federal government for raiding the Social Security trust fund

President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act, 1935
(Source:Wikimedia Commons--public domain)

Given the increasing frequency of bipartisan attacks on Social Security and Medicare and threats to gut these programs to balance the federal budget, it’s time for seniors to get organized and fight back. The fact of the matter is that today’s seniors have ample grounds to sue the federal government for violating the law by raiding the Social Security trust fund created in 1983.

Social Security’s critics seldom mention that the program is self-funded through mandatory payroll taxes and that President Reagan, under the recommendation of Alan Greenspan, signed into law amendments authorizing the creation of a Social Security trust fund to be kept separate from the federal budget and protected in a “lockbox.”

As the NewsHour’s Paul Solman pointed out last November, “the lockbox has indeed been raided, in the sense that the money in the trust fund was never really set aside or meaningfully protected.”

Last Friday night on the NewsHour, Mark Shields finally responded to yet another slur against America’s seniors by David Brooks by saying, “Social Security is self-funding, it’s solvent, and in fact, it’s been bankrolling the rest of the government.”

In addition to suing the government for violating the law and raiding Social Security funds, it’s high time our seniors demanded from politicians and media reps like Brooks the respect they deserve by protesting the use of the derogatory expression “entitlement programs,” to describe Social Security and Medicare.