2 million 'Don't Cut Social Security' signatures to White House today

Two million signatures rejecting cuts to Social Security benefits will be delivered to the White House steps today by groups representing millions of American workers and retirees.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Democratic Reps. Mark Takano of California and Rick Nolan of California (a former Teamster) will lead the protest at 12:30 pm. Sanders has vowed to do everything in his power to stop the cuts to Social Security.

President Obama is expected to propose using the chained CPI to calculate cost-of-living increases to Social Security. Under the plan, grandparents who retire today would get $650 less a year when they are 75 and over $1,100 less a year when they reach age 85, according to the Social Security Administration.

The Teamsters belong to the Strengthen Social Security coalition, which urges us to fight against the cuts:

This is an emergency. If the President proposes Social Security cuts in his budget, it can only get worse from there. Our parents, children, friends, and neighbors are counting on us. 

Help us tell the President: No cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Join us this Tuesday, April 9th at 12:30 pm EDT to deliver hundred of thousands of petitions to the White House to remind the President why we elected him.

There's still time to add your name to a petition opposing Social Security cuts. Sen. Tom Harkin started a petition here. It urges President Obama to reconsider his decision to include the chained CPI in his budget.

Sign now. And watch the event on the livestream here.

Rick Perry. There he goes again.

Wonder what products he uses?

Gov. Goodhair is, um, dissembling about Social Security again.  Here's exactly what he said over the weekend, according to the Houston Chronicle:

It is a Ponzi scheme for these young people. The idea that they're working and paying into Social Security today, that the current program is going to be there for them, is a lie. It is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can't do that to them.

Never mind that Rick Perry wouldn't know a Ponzi scheme if he fell over one. To help him understand the difference, Mother Jones came up with a great diagram.

The Strengthen Social Security campaign has a few choice words for the Texas governor as well. Here are the best ones:

Social Security is the opposite of a Ponzi scheme, which is a fraud, a deceptive promise made by a swindler that investors will reap huge returns. Social Security is a promise by the United States government, and a set of protections earned by working persons, that insures against lost earnings resulting from severe disability, retirement and death. And it delivers on that promise, which is why it is America’s most successful and popular federal program.

Like any system, Social Security can experience problems, but it can never go bankrupt. Its major source of income is from the contributions of workers and employers; as long as there are workers, Social Security will have income. Even if Congress took no action, Social Security can pay 100 percent of promised benefits for the next 25 years and more than three-quarters of benefits after that.

Save Social Security from the muggers

Our friends at the Strengthen Social Security campaign say they were pleased with President Obama's State of the Union speech last night. Here's what Obama said:

To put us on solid ground, we should also find a bipartisan solution to strengthen Social Security for future generations. And we must do it without putting at risk current retirees, the most vulnerable, or people with disabilities; without slashing benefits for future generations; and without subjecting Americans’ guaranteed retirement income to the whims of the stock market.

TeamsterNation believes that words matter, but in Washington, not so much. As a critic pointed out, Obama promised to close Guantanamo in one year.

Here are some words about Social Security by the incomparable Bob Herbert. They matter because they should inspire people to head toward the barricades in defense of Social Security.

If there’s a better government program than Social Security, I’d like to know what it is.
It has gone a long way toward eliminating poverty among the elderly. Great numbers of them used to live and die in ghastly, Dickensian conditions of extreme want. Without Social Security today, nearly half of all Americans aged 65 or older would be poor. With it, fewer than 10 percent live in poverty.

But Herbert was only warming up:

When you see surveillance videos of some creep mugging an elderly person in an elevator or apartment lobby, the universal reaction is outrage. But when the fat cats and the ideologues want to hack away at the lifeline of Social Security, they are treated somehow as respectable, even enlightened members of the society. We need a reality check. Attacking Social Security is both cruel and unnecessary. It needs to stop.

He notes that there is no Social Security crisis. Potential long-term problems could be fixed easily by raising the cap on payroll taxes so rich people share more of the burden. (Yeah, like that happens in America these days.)  And he points out what needs to be repeated again and again and again:

The folks who want to raise the retirement age and hack away at benefits for ordinary working Americans are inevitably those who have not the least worry about their own retirement. The haves so often get a perverse kick out of bullying the have-nots.

Read the whole thing here.

Don't let Wall Street get its hands on Social Security

Will President Obama propose cuts to Social Security in his State of the Union address on Tuesday? That's the burning question among those who've noticed that the attacks on the middle class gathered steam since the November elections.

The peerless Dean Baker is bracing for Obama's speech. The economist hopes Senate President Harry Reid (a good Teamster friend) will thwart any attempt to gut the immensely popular, efficient and solvent Social Security system. Baker wrote a terrific piece in the Huffington Post, titled "Can Harry Be a Hero?" that's worth reading in its entirety. Baker explains why Social Security is under attack (Hint: It isn't because it's breaking the budget and it isn't because it's in financial trouble.)

There is no doubt that the forces arrayed against Social Security are enormously powerful. The wealthy hate the idea of government money going to anyone but them, and since the vast majority of Social Security benefits are going to low and middle-income families, the program is an outrage to their sensibilities.

The financial industry also knows a cash cow when they see one. It would take more than $10 trillion in private accounts to generate the same amount of money as Social Security pays out each year in benefits. If the financial industry collected just 1.0 percent of this sum in fees each year, it would mean another $100 billion a year into the coffers of the Merrill Lynch set.

If you're worried about Social Security, and you should be, go to the website for "Strengthen Social Security."  There you'll find what you can do to fight the latest attempts by Wall Street to destroy the middle class.