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Raising
False SS Alarms
by
Bob Herbert
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.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities tells us that close to 90
percent of people 65 and older
get at least some of their family income from Social Security. For more
than half of the elderly,
it provides the majority of their income. For many, it is the only
income they have.
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.
Excellent point:
When a mugger steals their check, it's a serious crime.
When a Rethug bastard steals their check, it's just "a difference in ideology."
In both cases Grandma loses her check, but that's OK with today's GOP.
But I'm confused - it's easier to steal money from bigger government.
When the pot is smaller, there's less to steal - that's why Bush & Cheney
dragged us into a war so billions in vash could be "lost without a trace."