Republican opposition to Social Security began before FDR’s ink dried on the bill, because it actually returns money to poor and middle class people, when the Republican agenda is to transfer wealth from the poor and middle classes to millionaires, billionaires and criminal corporations. However, Social Security is so popular with the US public that it is considered the third rail of politics. A few Republican extremists attack it directly to their own peril, but most find more sneaky ways to chip away at its edges. Here is the latest such attempt.
Last week, Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) said that he believes the retirement age for Social Security needs to be increased — despite the regressive nature and complete lack of need for such a move — because young people “will live to be more than 100.” “They’ll be replacing body parts like we do tires,” Daniels said.
Last night, Daniels was joined by another governor who may have his eye on the 2012 Republican nomination for president: Tim Pawlenty. During an interview with CNN’s Elliot Spitzer, Pawlenty said that, due to the nation’s fiscal position, young people will have to “correlate your retirement…to life expectancy“…
…Watch it:
Pawlenty never used the words “raise the retirement age,” but “correlate your retirement…to life expectancy” means precisely the same thing. Like Daniels (and many others on both ends of the political spectrum), Pawlenty is relying on a faulty understanding of America’s increasing life expectancy to push a regressive cut in Social Security that will disproportionately impact those most in need of the program.
While average life expectancy has indeed been rising, the increase is largely a result of a significant rise in life expectancy among upper income earners. Middle- and low-income workers have not seen the same increases… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Think Progress>
Pawlenty would have us believe that he is a moderate Republican. That is a lie, virtually all moderate Republicans have been forced out of office by the extremists.
4 Responses to “Pawlenty Targets Social Security”
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There is no mystery to the current-day Republican agenda. Everything they say and do is all about the further aggrandizement of the already-too-wealthy corporatists at the expense of the rest of us. And this increase isn’t just monetary. Power is the real motive, as the money is just a tool to be used in pursuit of power to wield over us. Once we are successfully subdued, they will turn to conquering the rest of the world. Once the world is conquered, they will turn on each other until only one holds all power and control. It is only logical.
As long as we can be kept separated by relatively minor differences, they can manipulate us and keep control over us. The key to ending this abuse is to outnumber them. Ending their abuse must be the goal of all of us, or else we might as well get used to being enslaved and impoverished. I am not going to go down without a fight. Will you?
Realist, I started fighting the day after SCOTUS appointed GW President. I plan to stop three days after they nail my lid on.
If they just removed the damned cap, none of this nonsense would be up for debate. The rich don’t need ss to survive; the middle and upper class do.
Bingo!