Twenty-five reasons to vote for Obama: #8--Social Security

There is some consternation among those on the left that as part of the fiscal cliff equation, President Obama will make some sort of "grand bargain" on Social Security--raising the retirement age or cutting benefits or allowing some sort of privitization of our retirement funds.  While I cannot guarantee that President Obama will not, he has said nothing thus far that would lend itself to such belief.  In fact, his surrogate, Vice-President Biden has guaranteed there will be no changes to Social Security in President Obama's second term.  My gut feeling is that the Democrats, as noted by Harry Reid, realize there is no crisis in Social Security despite the conventional wisdom and will let it ride, especially if they continue to control the Senate.  Further, President Obama has said he is open to raising the cap from $108,000 on Social Security taxes, which is the most popular choice among Americans for keeping Social Security financially solvent.

What I can guarantee is that under Mitt Romney, there will definitely be changes and none of them for the better.  Romney's plan calls for cutting benefits, gradually raising the retirement age, and something called price indexing which means (other than a much better deal for Romney's peers, the wealthy) "Good luck, you're on your own mother fuckers!"  Because what elderly Americans really need is to eat more catfood and be a fucking Wal-Mart greeter until they're in their nineties.

Social Security is the most successful government program this nation has ever had.  It has kept countless seniors out of poverty, is among the best run programs we have, and is the envy of the rest of the world.  There is no crisis in Social Security.  It can pay full benefits for the next twenty years and three-quarters for the next seventy-five years.  The crisis is a bullshit lie by those who would like to further enrich Wall Street and privatize what the government can do much better than private enterprise--take care of people.

Anyone who thinks not can just look back to the Stock Market collapse in the fall of 2008, and how most people lost better than 50% of their 401k funds.  And we really want to turn our safety net over to those same morons?

Methinks not.

Peace,
emaycee