Vote for those who will protect Social Security - By Virjeana Brown

My comments in bold.
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On Aug. 14 Social Security celebrated it’s (sic) 81st anniversary. Never a late or missed payment. (When the debt ceiling debate was happening in 2011, who was it that threatened the taxpayer by suggesting that Social Security checks might not be mailed? Barack Obama.)

Pretty impressive, in fact, the most successful anti-poverty social insurance program ever. (Successful? What about seniors having to choose between food and medicine? Or the huge poverty problem among seniors? Or their soaring bankruptcy rates? This is a successful anti-poverty program?

Oh, wait. Ms. Brown said it was the "most successful." That lowers the bar considerably. Of all the ill-conceived, wasteful, corrupt, failed government anti-poverty programs, SS is the "most successful." That makes more sense.)

This is an important milestone as Social Security has been highlighted in the presidential campaigns/debates this year and has been under attack since it’s (sic) inception. One side clearly wants to cut and privatize Social Security, while the other side wants to expand it. Social Security is more important now and will be in the future with the loss of defined contribution retirements, student debt, mass incarceration as well as low wages preventing people from saving for retirement. (In other words, all those government economic interventions and programs have have had a devastating impact on people, so government needs to rescue us from government with expanded SS. Hmm.)

This year the Senate and House Budget Appropriations Committees voted to cut $700M from the administration budget of the Social Security Administration (SSA). Social Security is self-funded. Of every dollar you pay into Social Security, 99 cents comes back as benefits and 1 cent goes to administration. What is the potential impact of this cut? Potential office closures, across the board cuts in office hours, a push to get people to use the 800-number (long waits already) and on-line services. In order to use on-line services, you must have a cell phone with texting capabilities to access your own information.

This is intentionally being done to make Social Security unpopular and undermine confidence in the program. (We should have our confidence undermined, because the program is bankrupt, the Trust Fund is empty, and government has spent all that money.)

People become angry at the SSA instead of the congressmen voting to cut this administration budget. How dare these people cut money out of the SSA administration. This is our money, that we pay into this program, to ensure the disbursement of benefits. (It is not our money, it is government's. Government taxed us, took the money and spent it.)

Vote for candidates who will expand and protect Social Security, not those who would cut and privatize our earned benefits.

Virjeana Brown

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