Email #17 Finally we are playing offense on Medicare and Social Security

Our lifeline programs are always in danger of attacks by the 1%, but there is virtue in fighting back. Raising the Medicare age and chained CPI are not on the table in this election year—switching from defense to offense has been very helpful here. Look for the attacks to resume in 2015.

Strengthen Social Security (S567/HB 3118) and Senator Patty Murray’s just introduced RAISE Act

The former is much better on increasing FICA on the wealthy—please ask Senator Murray to change item 4. http://www.budget.senate.gov/democratic/public/index.cfm/blog?ID=0d0209df-8a1b-414d-aa2c-4492caf067fa
•Enhances benefits for divorced spouses.
•Enhances benefits for widows and widowers.
•Extends benefit eligibility for children of retired, disabled or deceased workers.
•Beginning in 2015, the RAISE Act would apply a two percent payroll tax rate on earnings over $400,000, with the threshold wage-indexed after 2015.

S567/HB3118 would http://www.harkin.senate.gov/press/release.cfm?i=341035
• Strengthen Benefits by Reforming the Social Security Benefit Formula: This change will boost benefits for all Social Security beneficiaries by approximately $70 per month, but is targeted to help those in the low and middle of the income distribution.
• Ensure that Cost of Living Adjustments Adequately Reflect the Living Expenses of Retirees (COLA). To ensure that benefits better reflect cost increases facing seniors, future COLAs will be based on the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E).
• To help extend the life of the trust fund the Act phases out the current taxable cap of $113,700 so that payroll taxes apply fairly to every dollar of wages.

The Social Security Administration’s “Vision 2025”

Published on March 10, 2014, this document advocates making online self-service deliver its primary service channel, eliminating direct service to clients except in very limited circumstances, farming out much of its workload to outside agencies and eliminating traditional centralized offices. Outside organizations would be allowed to charge for services that we have already paid for with our FICA taxes. Requiring online enrollment essentially strips people for whom English is not a first language, people who do not have and do not know how to use computers, and people with disabilities such as early onset Alzheimer’s of benefits they have worked for all their live. Urge your federal lawmakers to decisively reject “Vision 2025” and instead to mandate increased funding for SSA field workers and traditional full service field offices.

Online petitions—please sign

http://www.americawantsnocuts.com/americasfuture/
http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/6405/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=8984
http://www.aarp.org/politics-society/advocacy/info-04-2012/youve-earned-a-say.html?cmp=YEAS_MAR1_012?3e3ea140
http://allianceforamerica.us/?p=223

Articles
1. Liberals Dance on the Grand Bargain's Grave, BuzzFeed Politics http://www.moveon.org/r/?r=294904&id=77636-5613343-TCIK4Mx&t=4
2. Paul Krugman: Expanding Social Security http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/22/opinion/krugman-expanding-social-security.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=1&
3. Growing Movement: Expand Social Security or 'Pay a Price' http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/11/20-6 According to the findings, over 70 percent of those polled in each of nine areas said they oppose cuts to Social Security benefits, and an average 65 percent of those polled support an increase to the benefits. Further, almost 70 percent said they would be less likely to support a candidate who supported any cuts.
4. 50 Is the New 65: Older Americans Are Getting Booted from Their Jobs -- and Denied New Opportunities http://www.alternet.org/economy/age-discrimination-workplace
5. Dean Baker | Time to Retire Fears over Aging Populations http://www.nationofchange.org/time-retire-fears-over-aging-populations-1391093747
6. Simpson-Bowles anti-debt group is—pause to laugh—deeply in debt7. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/13/1277295/-Bowles-Simpson-offshoot-is-broke A year and a half after launching with much fanfare, a group affiliated with fiscal watchdogs Erskine Bowles and former Sen. Alan Simpson is nearly broke
8. Statement by Medicare Rights Center President Joe Baker on Representative Paul Ryan’s House Budget Proposal http://www.medicarerights.org/newsroom/press-releases/4114-2/?utm_source=Medicare-Watch-email&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_term=mcw&utm_content=mcw&utm_campaign=MCW+4.3.14 The budget released today by Congressman Ryan repeats on an old and tired theme—ending the Medicare program as we know it.
9. It’s a simple game. Slash funding for well-run government programs, then use the resulting chaos as “evidence” that “government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/invisible-social-security_b_5115505.html

Attachments: Flyer on Strengthen Social Security (S567/HB 3118), a flyer on reducing Medicare costs without hurting seniors and a flyer against phasing out central Social Security Administration offices. Free faxes at http://faxzero.com/ and http://www.gotfreefax.com/ Email, for obvious reasons, is restricted to constituents. Phones and faxes are not. For critical issues, consider adding faxes to your activist arsenal. Sometimes staff will ask your address when you call. If you don’t live in the representative’s district, explain that you are holding all members of Congress responsible for avoiding cuts to our lifeline programs.

A note on free faxes: they must be from a valid email address. When you send a fax, they send it first to your email address and give you a link to click on. Only clicking the link you got by email will send the fax. Limit 2 per day, no more than 3 pages. For $10/month you can send more faxes and more pages. If you want to ramp up your activities as an online activist, and can afford it, this would be a good investment.

PM me if you’d like to be added to this list or if you want pdfs of the attachments.