Republicans and many media people call them entitlements, something to which you think you're entitled, but didn't earn, like an inheritance (which strangely they claim is a holy devt to the children of the wealthy.)
But we showed that you earn 20 years of retirement by the money that you alone paid into the Social Security system, and employers payments into the Social Security system for employees boosts that retirement to 40 years all prepaid. Yet, Republicans want to permanently take away part of those savings which they call entitlements (ie gifts) and have carefully crafted their arguments so that it appears that seniors and working people would be supporting taking more from "welfare" which is virtually non-existant instead of supporting the theft of their own Social Security moneys which they have placed in charge of the government.
Even younger people, have already paid heavily into the system (read our report on how up to 15% of your income each year was paid into the SS & Medicare system -- calculate that out and learn how much of you money you would lose) and they will get a better deal than they are likely to do with greedy Wall Street managers taking care of that money (especially since employers are not likely to offer them matching savings compensations on the private market and financial firms are experts in stealing their investors' money which is why they can afford massive dumps of glitzy ads on cable and broadcast programs. But hey, if you want to support billionaire GOP supporter bankers instead of your own retirement, go ahead and follow the Republicans to their entitlement free future. Just remember them in their castles in Cabo while you're shivering on the streets of Detroit or wherever when you get older. Knowing they're laughing at you might help you survive another day. Who can't appreciate a good joke? Well, maybe those who are the butt of the joke, like we all are to the GOP.)
Again, the best way to make your Congress member do what you want is to contact them. YOu can find their addresses (for DC and local offices), emails, fax and phone numbers at House.gov and Senate.gov. For your specific House Representative you will need to know your valid registered address, including your zipcode and possibly the 4 number extension. You can find your zip and extension at usps.com by clicking on "Find a Zip-Code" which opens up a floating box where you can put your address information. (Alternatively, click here to go to a full page dedicated to the same purpose.) For your Senators, I assume you remember which state you live in and can go from there.
Tell your Representative and your Senators through their staff, or via mail, or fax, that you will not find it acceptable that the 15% you've put into Social Security through your and your employers' mandated contributions be disappeared, by law or by their defaulting on the debt the Congress already has agreed by vote to take on through tax cuts for millionaires in the Bush years, two unfunded wars during the Bush years and the financial mismanagement that led to a near depression which started during the Bush years, and that you know that the nation does better when the rich pay their fair share of taxes given the immense wealth they get from our nation than with the supply side tax cuts they want to give to their fat cat backers. Tell them you will hold them personally responsible for the outcome of this new looming crisis, and protecting your Social Security funds.
Don't let them BS you about how Wall Street bankers will take care of your retirement for you. Those people crashed our economy in 2008 and have shown they are adept at stealing from investors. (Wall Street banks are also responsible for the crises in Greece and Spain that is dragging down the whole of Mid latitude and Southern Europe though GOP operatives and officials lie about that. Scandinavian nations which offer high amounts of financial help for the poor and for seniors and a great public education to their younger citizens are doing surprisingly well, for the same reason that the Clinton economy did better than the supply side heavy and sputtering Reagan economy which really only had one upturn in mid to late 2004 allowing his re-election.)
And, yes, this is a new crisis brought on by GOP grandstanding which has even more power to crash our economy and keep it down than the Fiscal Cliff crisis they threatened the US with two weeks ago. I'll apologize for Congress, but the GOP must bear their own blame for seeking to win the already decided 2012 election by forcing repeated crises.
A good short URL for this post is http://x.co/rs7W
