Photo courtesy of here.
Yesterday marked the 76th anniversary of Social Security-a retirement/disability program. SS has proven to be one of the most popular and successful programs in our nation’s history. Sadly, President Obama has proposed cutting it and Medicare in order to protect the bloated Pentagon budget.
Social Security and Medicare are extremely popular programs which have improved the quality of life for the elderly in a very efficient way for decades. Instead of protecting these programs President Obama has proposed making cuts to these programs which have been the Democratic Party’s crowning achievement.
The Republicans opposed these policies and have wanted to get rid of them ever since they were implemented. President George W. Bush took a political thumping in the polls when he went around the country attempting to drum up support for privatizing Social Security.
But now as Glenn Greenwald notes, we have a Democratic administration that has clearly stated that they want to cut these “entitlements” in order to protect the bloated Pentagon budget. Though polls clearly show that Americans from across the political spectrum don’t want cuts to Social Security or Medicare both parties are pushing for cuts to these programs.
It is clear that the politicians in Washington aren’t working for the American people. This difference between public opinion and public policy is striking and referred to as the Democracy Gap. We now know what the two corporate parties want to do. The only question that remains is ‘what will the American people do’. Will we watch corporate owned politicians dismantle the New Deal and the Great Society? Or will the American people roar as citizens in Egypt and around the world are at draconian government policies?
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