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12/02/10

At CNS News


Social Security Cuts Are Part of Deficit Reduction Plan

 

 

By Andrew Taylor

The members of President Barack Obama's deficit commission will begin to go on the record Wednesday as they debate politically explosive budget cuts, including proposals to lower Social Security benefits, in a revised plan to wrestle the national debt under control.

The new plan by panel co-chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, to be unveiled Wednesday, faces an uphill slog because of proposals to raise the Social Security retirement age and lower cost-of-living increases, cut Medicare costs, curtail a huge assortment of tax breaks, like the deduction for mortgage interest, and almost double the federal tax on a gallon of gasoline.

Though the plan appears unlikely to win enough bipartisan support from the panel to be approved for a vote in Congress this year or next, Bowles has already declared victory, saying he and Simpson have at least succeeded in initiating an "adult conversation" in the country about the pain it will take to cut the deficit.

The plan faces resistance from many commission members. House Republicans appear uniformly against tax increases, while liberal Democrats like Jan Schakowsky of Illinois appear unlikely to be able to accept big cuts in federal programs for seniors.

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I truly believe I am a patriotic American who would make any sacrifice for my country. If we were in a war for national survival or were facing a true crisis and my monthly social security check would help, I would ask the government to keep it because they needed it more than I did.

Same thing on gas taxes and income taxes and all that - there are things in my life that are not essential. I could do without them if the country really needed the money that badly.

But then I look at all the fraud, waste and abuse in and by the government, I look at high-paid, fat-assed, lazy civil servants, I look at professional welfare clients, I look at illegal immigrants getting a free ride on health, education and housing.

And that's when I say to the government:

FUCK YOU

the only reason I'm paying my taxes at all is because the IRS has the power to fine me or put me in jail if I don't.

I live with the hope that there is justice in the afterlife and that those who have used positions of power in this life to abuse and steal from those under their dominion will burn in a hot corner of hell.

The founders may have erred when they left out of the Constitution any provision for a "Vote of No Confidence" to 'unelect' people who don't work out, sort of a "Lemon Law" for politicians. Or maybe that's what the 2nd Amendment was designed to cover?