Sunday, August 26, 2012

Putting our Faith in Conservative Defeatists!!

As the title clearly states, we've been putting our faith and money on leaders, politicians and non-human interests (corporations are people my friend) that don’t want to fix anything. To them, Social Security and Medicare won’t be there for them, so what’s to fix?

Conservatives have so far done a pretty good job of convincing younger voters that their defeatist attitude is a virtue, and rooted firmly in reality. The truth is, under their defeatist political guidance, the loss of our safety nets is a win for the party and a loss for actual people. So why vote for a sure thing that rewards political quitters?

Because the Democrats aren’t there demanding that their solutions be enacted. Even when the public is totally on their side.
Real Clear Politics: Most Americans say go ahead and raise taxes if it will save Social Security benefits for future generations. And raise the retirement age, if you have to. Both options are preferable to cutting monthly benefits, even for people who are years away from applying for them.
That's what actual American's are saying:
A new Associated Press-GfK poll on public attitudes toward the nation's largest federal program: When given a choice on how to fix them, 53 percent of adults said they would rather raise taxes than cut benefits for future generations. 36 percent would cut benefits. 53 percent said they would raise the retirement age, while 35 percent said they would cut monthly payments.
That’s not exactly a defeatist approach to saving Social Security, is it? Yet the conservative propaganda surrounding the eventual death of Social Security, is creating just the right amount of uncertainty, as illustrated sporadically in the comments below.
"Right now, it seems like we're taxed so much, but if that would be the only way to go, I guess I'd have to be for it to preserve it," said Marge Youngs, a 77-year-old widow from Toledo, Ohio. "It's extremely important to me. It's most of my income."

But Jeff Victory of Nashville, Tenn., worries that Obama doesn't have the stomach to cut benefits to help rein in the program. "Barack has already shown he's going to give anything free out to everyone he possibly can, so I'm going to have to go with Romney on that one," said Victory, a 26-year-old electrician. "I'm not planning on it at all, honestly," said Victory, the 26-year-old electrician.

"Raising taxes, especially on the people that provide the jobs for us, is not an option because what you do there, you discourage promoting jobs," said James Taylor, a 68-year-old retiree from Golden, Miss.

But Juan Tellez, a 22-year-old college student in Gainesville, Fla., said he would accept higher taxes if it means preserving benefits, even though he's not very confident Social Security will be around for his generation. "I think of Social Security as an investment, as a public investment almost, something more communal," Tellez said. "I feel like I would want to invest in that."
Without an equally powerful argument that actually reflects the public’s willingness to increase taxes for security in old age, the Republicans will eventually get what they want. Look at it this way; if the public continues to elect Republicans who want to do just the opposite of public opinion, then how hard can it be get elected promising to fiercely defend what the people want? 

1 comment:

  1. It's interesting that the public is never presented in these polls with the option of extending the FICA tax to all income rather than capping it at current levels for the benefit of upper income earners.

    This step alone would solve any alleged crisis and would not result in a higher tax rate. In fact, the FICA rate could even be lowered under such a scenario.

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