Santa Rosa, CA
June 16, 2010
Dear Representative Woolsey,
It’s like a trick of misdirection, except that instead of a magician distracting an audience from seeing how the legerdemain is accomplished, we’re living through Congress deflecting our attention from important domestic issues over to patches on a system that is ready to burst.
Instead of enacting health insurance reforms that would have been fiscally responsible, ethical, and humane—such as Medicare for All with a single-payer system—we’re faced with the president and Congress telling us that to balance our budget we need to make cuts in two of the only programs in our country that offer protection to those who most need it: Medicare and Social Security.
The Center for Budget Policy and Priorities (CBPP) has calculated that 20 percent of our federal budget goes to Social Security and another 21 percent covers our health programs—Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP. Social Security provided over 50 million people with benefits last year, and for millions of those people it was their only source of income. The benefits they receive are tied to the amount of money they contributed into the fund while they worked—a fund intended to stay untouched except for Social Security’s disbursements. While benefits paid may currently exceed income to the fund (and tax reform could rectify that disparity), Social Security is a comparatively self-sufficient program.
Medicare assists 46 million elderly and disabled people in receiving healthcare, without requiring significant payments into the system. It is a true entitlement for our society’s vulnerable, and it is a validation of our country’s declaration of the equality—and dignity—of all people. Medicaid and CHIP help 64 million of our poorest people receive medical care they otherwise would go without. It is impossible to estimate how many lives would have been lost prematurely—especially our children—without the aid of these programs. It is also impossible to gauge how much these programs have helped its beneficiaries achieve a better quality of life, giving them the chance to contribute to our common good.
The CBPP also gives figures on the percentage of our taxes that goes toward Defense: Their calculation of 20 percent is conservative, when compared to other budget analyses. And while Defense expenditures should be for the defense of our people, you would be hard pressed to make a convincing argument that money spent for the occupations and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made Americans safe. Neither of those financial sinkholes aids in the defense of our people at home.
In the art of misdirection, all of the attention is focused on the wrong actions so that the true intention can be accomplished. With magic, it’s fun—entertainment that is harmless. But misdirecting our attention over to the cost of Medicare and Social Security is deadly. Cuts in the money spent for the least benefit to our people—on weapons, missiles, bases, armaments, equipment, contracted services, bribes, and more—aren’t even considered as the more appropriate way to balance our budget. This is a dangerous misdirection, and it imperils the fabric of our society.
If anything, the widening gap between the wealthy and the rest of us—as well as the increasing personal debt Americans carry simply to provide for our families—demonstrates the need not only to keep Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP intact, but also the need to expand these programs to help those who are suffering the effects of our precarious economy.
While Congress, encouraged by the president, continues to dole out money to wars and shore up undeserving and reckless corporations, our people are in danger of falling through the cracks in our system widened by funding cuts.
We urge you take seriously this summer’s chant, “Hands Off Medicare and Social Security,” and work to preserve these safety nets for now and for the future.
We thank you for joining Rep. John Conyers’ Out of Afghanistan Caucus, which seeks to end our military operations in Afghanistan and bring our troops and resources home without delay. We thank you for cosponsoring HR 5015 and HR 3699, to codify the withdrawals. And to staunch the financial hemorrhage, we urge you to vote NO on the Afghanistan supplemental.
Further, we urge you to publicly commit to voting “No” on any bills that fund wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Yemen, and to publicly urge your colleagues and the House leadership to make the same commitment.
You have the power to stop the misdirection in Congress; leave that act for magic shows.
In the hope of peace,
Progressive Democrats Sonoma County
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