We write to affirm our vigorous opposition to cutting Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits in any final bill to replace sequestration. Earned Social Security and Medicare benefits provide the financial and health protections necessary to keep individuals and families out of poverty. Medicaid is not only a lifeline for low-income children, pregnant women, people with disabilities and families, it is the primary source of long-term care services and supports for 3.6 million individuals. We cannot overstate their importance for our constituents and our country. ...Jan Schakowsky
Notice the word "earned" in the text. Those are earned Social Security and Medicare benefits. They aren't, as Republicans would like us to believe, gifts from the hard-working to slacker retirees. (Nor, by the way, are they free even when you're eligible for them. You go on paying...)
And, of course, there's no need to cut either program to achieve sufficient budget cuts. That's what the Congressional Dems made clear in their statements yesterday.
Yesterday, Senate Democrats released their plan to avert the sequester for the rest of the year — it contains $110 billion in deficit reduction, evenly divided between spending cuts and new revenues. The new revenues are derived from a 30 percent minimum tax on income over $1 million; the spending savings are a mix of defense and farm subsidy cuts. ...Greg Sargent
Sargent goes on to point out that "the Dem proposal to avert the sequester with a 50-50 mix of revenues and cuts constitutes a mix of concessions by both sides. Republicans, by contrast, have proposed to avert it only with concessions by Dems, and no concessions of any kind from their side."
In other words, Republicans will only play if they're allowed to play dirty. But hey, they'd prefer not to work at all. Talk about "slackers"! Check out that week-long holiday at the edge of their "fiscal cliff." If that isn't nuts, I don't know what is.
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