Excuse me? Did I actually hear Barack Obama threaten to stop Social Security payments if Congress can't overcome the budget impasse? And, why aren't furious American's protesting in the streets?
Yes, we all know to blame the intransigent Republicans whose goals are to decimate our social safety net and infrastructure, even as they continue to channel resources provided by the poor, working, and middle classes towards their obscenely wealthy patrons. But, our Wall-Street-loving President's counter strategy actually plays right into the hands of the right wing radicals. "Well, they don't like our social programs and want to cut them, so let's threaten to cut them unless they make a deal." Why does that appear to be a strategy that will only hasten the devastation of one of the last remaining lifelines for the elderly, the poor, and the disabled?
Why not instead threaten the budget blockaders with this approach: If you don't agree on a budget, we will cut 3/4 of the defense allocations. We will stop the military incursions (read: wars) in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. We will close Guantanamo. The military-industrial complex has been feeding off the taxpayer's trough for over 60 years--it is their rapacious greed, coupled with tax cuts for the wealthy, and deregulation that allows corporations to pay no taxes on trillions of revenue that have brought us to this point.
No, I sadly fear our disappointing President is playing the first hand of his "Only Nixon could go to China" game. W Bush and his cronies raided our treasury and borrowed the steady and solvent life savings of working and middle class investors in retirement plans and in Social Security to fund their gluttonous rampage in the US and around the world. W's attempts to test the waters of cutting Social Security near the end of his term were rightly met with outrage. This last step of the corporatist-globalist agenda, dismantling FDR's social safety net, would have to wait for a new President.
Enter Barack Obama. Marketing himself as a progressive during his campaign, he has unfortunately proven to be a neo-liberal, on military and financial issues as conservative as his Republican counterparts and his corporatist staff. But, the "D" after his name (which is too good a grade for his performance) means that he can talk about cutting Social Security, Medicare, etc. without the immediate backlash that an "R" president would face. And, as he and his team do take the initial steps to "modify" these lifelines for non-wealthy Americans, we will see the corporatist-feudalist agenda that is destroying the middle and working classes advance.
Gangsters have robbed you of your savings. Obama could've been the sheriff that pursued and arrested these criminals and recovered the money they stole--your money. Instead, he is both complicit and active in asking you to turn over the last bit of funds you'd stored under your mattress, even as he raises the prices for food, rent, and gas, and lowers your slave wage.
No, Barack, Social Security should NEVER be on the table. You have just arm-twisted Congress into granting you absolute power to declare unethical war. If the criminal Republicans don't negotiate and work to develop a fair, compassionate, and reasonable budget, I can't believe you can't find a way to consolidate power to push a budget through that preserves the last traces of humanitarianism for the people you promised to help--Americans.
We the people must not stand for this any more.
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