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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=tanstl@aol.com href="mailto:tanstl@aol.com">David Sladky</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=undisclosed-recipients:
href="mailto:undisclosed-recipients:">undisclosed-recipients:</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Monday, March 29, 2010 9:24 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Health Care Battle Ends; War on Social Security
Begins</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT face=arial color=black size=2><FONT
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></FONT><BR><BR>
<DIV style="CLEAR: both">
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 20pt" size=5><B><FONT face=Verdana>Health Care Battle Ends;
War on Social Security Begins</FONT></B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 16pt" size=4>by Shamus
Cooke</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in"
align=justify><BR><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
face=Verdana>Drunk with success over their Health Care bill passing, the
Democrats are now lusting after even greater conquests. With the celebratory
hangover still aching, the Democrats lurch forward towards a hasty drive to
“reform” Social Security.</FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
face=Verdana>The Social Security reform will no doubt resemble the health care
reform, the details of which remain a mystery to most Americans. The
essence of both policies will be based on one principle: reduce the debt of the
United States by any means necessary. </FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
face=Verdana>Two articles in The New York Times confirmed that this was indeed
the reasoning behind Obama’s health care bill. The first
states:</FONT> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.5in; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">“<FONT
face=Verdana>[the health care bill] signed Tuesday by Mr. Obama... squeeze[s]
nearly a half-trillion dollars out of Medicare [500 billion dollars] in the
next 10 years and establish[s] many demonstration projects to test innovative
ways of delivering health care.” </FONT> </BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
face=Verdana>The second half of the quote — “innovative ways of delivering
health care” — is doublespeak for “health care rationing” (providing less), the
basis of Obama’s health care plan. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
face=Verdana>This truth was revealed in the same article, when Obama’s new
appointee to head Medicare and Medicaid, Dr. Donald Berwick, was
discussed. The main qualification of Dr. Berwick is that he plans to, in
his own words, “Over the next three years, reduce the total resource consumption
of your health care system, no matter where you start, by 10 percent.”
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
face=Verdana>A stark example of Dr. Berwick’s health care philosophy — rationing
— is then given, applied to himself after he received a serious knee
injury: “Doctors urged him to have a knee replacement operation several
years ago, but he decided instead to have just a “steroid injection,” and the
outcome has been fine, he said.” (March 28, 2010).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
face=Verdana>The head of Medicare and Medicaid will thus be advocating
“injections” when “surgeries” are recommended, as well as a variety of other
ways to ration health care. This key concept of Obama’s health care plan
was what the health care corporations were really salivating over, and now the
plan is to apply it to Social Security. </FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
face=Verdana>A separate New York Times article clearly explains how the
rationing of health care and the “reforming” of Social Security are one and the
same:</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.5in; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">“<FONT
face=Verdana>Central to the health care changes are hundreds of billions of
dollars in reductions in Medicare spending over time... As some administration
officials acknowledge, that effectively takes those fast-growing entitlement
programs off the table for deficit reduction just as Mr. Obama’s bipartisan
commission to reduce the mounting national debt gets to
work.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.5in; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">“<FONT
face=Verdana>That leaves Social Security, the other big entitlement benefits
program and one that Mr. Obama has suggested in the past that he is willing to
tackle. While its looming problems are not of the scale of those afflicting
Medicare, it now stands as the likeliest source of the sort of large savings
needed to bring projected annual deficits to sustainable levels, many budget
analysts agree.” (March 23, 2010, emphasis added).</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
face=Verdana>Doublespeak translation: “...large savings needed to bring
projected annual deficits to sustainable levels” equals rationing or “reducing”
Social Security benefits. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
face=Verdana>How will this happen? The article answers: “...packaging
future reductions in the retirement program [Social Security] that Democrats
zealously defend with tax increases that Republicans typically oppose would have
the makings of a grand compromise to shrink the debt.”<BR><BR>The article also
mentions “gradually rais[ing] the retirement age for future Social Security
recipients” as a popular idea. These reductions are necessary because
“...the promise of future reductions would immediately reassure global markets
fretful that the United States’ debt is already its highest since World War
II.” </FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
face=Verdana>There you have it. “Global markets,” i.e. rich investors, are
demanding that the U.S. pay them back in full, not in inflated dollars. It
is obvious that the Obama administration wants working people to pay this debt
back, not Wall Street or the wealthy in general. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
face=Verdana>And the article says nothing about the fact that the rich have a
sweet deal when it comes to paying into Social Security. The wages of
ordinary working people are taxed at a rate of 6.2 percent for Social
Security. But for the rich, they are not taxed at all on income over
$107,000, meaning that their overall Social Security tax rate is lower than
everyone else’s. By removing the cap on how much they are taxed, a
substantial amount of money would be raised for Social Security. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
face=Verdana>A working class solution to address the the nation's problems must
be fought for now! President of the AFL-CIO Richard Trumka offers a
splendid vision: "The best way to fix the deficit is to create 10 million
jobs now — the number of jobs needed to close our jobs deficit. This will
require large amounts of public investment in the short term, which should be
paid for in future years by taxing Wall Street. In addition to creating
jobs for Main Street this tax will also curb short-term speculation and other
Wall Street abuses that caused this recession."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
face=Verdana>Well said. But excellent ideas without the necessary actions
attached are meaningless. For labor to press their agenda, they must act
independently of the Democrats. Lobbying congressmen with union money
isn’t going to do the trick — not even close. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
face=Verdana>Labor can begin this time by taking back the streets. The Tea Party
conservatives are exploiting labor’s inaction, and thus garnering some public
support by their fake radicalism. Massive labor-led demonstrations, in
Washington, DC, for example, will quiet the corporate-sponsored Tea Partiers,
especially if Labor comes equipped with the above demands for job creation and
taxing Wall Street and the wealthy. The vast majority of working people
would overwhelmingly support such demands, and a serious campaign to achieve
them would change the face of the present corporate-dominated political
scene. But time is of the essence. The corporations have their
plans laid out and will push them into effect soon if they are not pushed back —
hard! </FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
face=Verdana><BR></FONT><STRONG><FONT face=Verdana>Shamus
Cooke</FONT></STRONG><EM><FONT face=Verdana> is a social service worker, trade
unionist, and writer for Workers Action (<A
href="http://www.workerscompass.org/">www.workerscompass.org</A>). He can
be reached at <A
href="mailto:shamuscooke@gmail.com">shamuscooke@gmail.com</A></FONT></EM><EM>.</EM></DIV></DIV></FONT><br />--
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