The Fix the Debt campaign, founded and funded by billionaire Pete Peterson and approximately 100 wealthy CEOs, has a dedicated mission to cut Social Security and Medicare in order to fund further tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. This strategy, which they sell as job creation, is merely a further redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy.
Unfortunately, this group of neo-robber barons has become entrenched in both the Democratic and Republican hierarchies. Two of their most ardent spokesman, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles were appointed to head President Obama’s Deficit Commission. Simpson has distinguished himself with outrageous video ads attempting to turn the young against the old by urging grandchildren to stop their grandparents from stealing their future. In spite of their clear affiliations and positions on earned benefits they were represented to be a bipartisan committee to address American budget issues in a “balanced” manner. Their recommendations have paved the way for earned benefit cuts that benefit corporations and the wealthy on the backs of seniors. These earned benefits, paid for over the years of their working careers, are characterized as “entitlements” or a form of welfare rather government pensions and medical insurance that were earned and paid over a productive lifetime.
Seniors are being thrown under the bus and need to organize to protect their economic security. Whether it is forming chapters of Grey Panthers, pressuring AARP to truly lobby for seniors rather than their insurance business, petitioning the White House and Congress, etc., unless there is an organized and widespread movement seniors will become a neglected underclass.
A couple of informative links for the Fix the Debt Committee:
Details of Pete Peterson’s supergroup
Vera Moldt
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Point Loma Democratic Club of which she is a member.
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