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As we all know VP GOP hopeful Paul Ryan and President Obama addressed AARP last week with their views on SS and Medicare and by all accounts Ryan made a very bad impression ( gee who would have thought that would happen!) while the President seems to make a much more a favorable impression with several “promises”. I decided to go and review the available transcripts of the discussion featuring the President and IMO I thought the President was got a free ride. I decided to send AARP the following email:
Hi ,
I am a former AARP member and I read through the transcripts of the AARP sponsored discussion with President Obama about his views on Social Security and Medicare. While it was heartening to hear the President to say no cuts and he would consider upping the pay roll cap it is troubling that no one asked the President about these areas of concern:
1) if the President is saying no cuts to SS why is he endorsing Bowles Simpson debt reduction plans that calls for cuts; means testing and raising the retirement age? This plan also calls for tax cuts for Corporations AND millionaires billionaires.
2) in 2008 candidate Obama promised no cuts; upping the cap on the pay roll tax. In Jan of 2009 President Obama announced his “grand bargain” were he wanted cuts to SS and Medicare. We also got cuts in the payroll tax that the President called “middle class” tax cuts.
3) the President has several times called for raising the retirement age for not only SS but for Medicare
4) The President promised to allow Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices yet he has done nothing to change this and still allows the Pharm industry to over charge for drugs
I am disappointed that AARP has not pushed back on the Presidents/ DNC about these issues. As a person approaching retirement age I would like to know why. As I mentioned I am a former member of AARP and left for these reasons. I would (and many others) consider coming back if AARP stood up.
If you go to AARP’s web site there is a contact person w/email and phone number. I was not sure if should include that information or not with this post.
14 Comments
Love the letter! Recommended.
Hope you are doing well bearman, and your health is okay. Always great to see you here.
My AARP experience: Shortly after joining, my mailbox simply EXPLODED with various offers for the elderly or retired. Insurance. Vacation homes. Retirement Homes. Reverse mortgages. Drug Plans. Class Action Lawsuits I might want to join.
Then they did all the things you list above. With MY money.
I’m with you, Bearman. When I see them do something other than sell my name, perhaps I’ll rejoin.
Boxturtle (Meanwhile, I’m telling others about my experiences. Before they join)
Well done, bearman!
Recommended to anyone who is getting older … everyone else can skip it.
DW
Yeah, for that reason, I’ll never join a group like that. They do a great job educating the otherwise apathetic but if I joined it would just be a license for them to send me spam email and snail mail.
Nice letter bearman. Yep! AARP seems far too credulous of Obama’s word and they sorta remind me of when NARAL endorsed Short Ride Lieberman. Though Obama may be the “best” candidate for AARP and retired persons among the two major parties, he’s far from the best in the entire field.
Recommended.
AARP is working hard to “strengthen” Social Security, which means to them do one or more of the following: 1) raise the full benefit age (scr$$ those lower class people!), 2) use a different COLA which even more than the current one underestimates increasing cost of living seniors experience, 3) raise the maximum income which the payroll tax hits (this one is not their favorite, could it be because it whacks the wealthier?), 4) change the benefit formula even more to discriminate against the higher earners, who already on average do not get most of their put-in income back before dying.
AARP is now run by well-connected Washington insiders who are no more in touch with or mirror the feelings and problems of the typical seniors than does Mittsky. Their sellout on Social Security (and Medicare) is why we dumped them.
BTW everyone: Social Security does not need fixing. You cannot estimate anything involving the economy, productivity, blah blah .. out even to the next decade, much less 25 – 75 years. The assumptions that lead to the “problem” in 2037 are quite questionable and very conservative in that they do not reflect the growth of GDP or of productivity that we have seen even in the last miserable 10 years, much less on any more typical average. It is just BS to justify stealing from the workers forever and never getting to the paying out the money part.
Even if it did need fixing, that fix is simple: lift the cap. Let rich people pay the same percentage everybody else does. Problem solved…essentially forever.
bearman–
Thank you for this diary, and taking the time and effort to email the AARP. I believe that they’ve already sold out, but, hey, it can’t hurt to let your voice be heard.
I will include the AARP phone number and email address below (if there’s a policy against it, I apologize to you and FDL Editors. Maybe the Editors can just delete that portion of my comment, if necessary.
Contact Information
By Postal Mail
AARP
601 E Street, NW
Washington DC 20049
By Phone:
Toll-Free Nationwide: 888-OUR-AARP (888-687-2277)
Toll-Free TTY: 877-434-7598
Toll-Free Spanish: 877-342-2277
International Calls: +1-202-434-3525
Hours: Monday to Friday: 7 a.m. through 11 p.m. ET
Email Address:
member@aarp.org
I’d like to reiterate a several points that I have made in the past couple of days, regarding the draconian cuts that the Obama administration (acting on the recommendations proffered by the Bowles-Simpson so-called fiscal commission, intend to enact immediately after the November election).
Raising the full retirement age to age 69 (from the current age 67, not yet in force, but already enacted in law, due to the Reagan Commission) would cost all future Social Security beneficiaries a 13-14% cut in their monthly benefits.
And “means-testing” will really eviscerate the monthly benefit. Don’t forget, this is a cut that Obama has already agreed to give John Boehner, according to Matt Bai’s NYT Magazine article. Hyperlink to Bai’s article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/magazine/obama-vs-boehner-who-killed-the-debt-deal.html?pagewanted=all&_moc.semityn.www
The raising of the full retirement age to age 69 (from the current age 67, not yet in force, but already enacted in law, due to the Reagan Commission) would cost all future Social Security beneficiaries a 13-!4% cut in their monthly benefits, alone.
“Means testing,” taken with the CPI-Index change, which lowers the COLA, and the 13-14% cut due to raising the FRA (full retirement age), will come to a reduction in monthly benefits of approximately 33-36%, for some beneficiaries. (The very lowest income beneficiaries, are not as severely impacted by “means-testing,” as are working class, lower-middle class, middle-class, etc.)”
OTOH, the lowest income Americans will have a new requirement imposed upon them. Their “vesting period” changes from 10 years (40 quarters), to 30 years (as was done in Mexico, when their system was reformed.)
As a matter of fact, the Bowles-Simpson Social Security reform proposals are VERY similar to the Mexican model, of the 1990′s. This may be one of the reasons that many Mexican nationals have left Mexico.
We currently have an agreement Mexico (and many other countries) in which folks who meet the “40 quarter vesting period,” are eligible to collect Social Security benefits from the US, even if and when, they return to their home countries.
Also, this week, Iowa Senator Tom Harkin formally presented his “partial privatization” plan for Social Security.
Of course, he doesn’t call it that. But it is exactly what it is.
Here’s the hyperlink to the plan brochure:
http://www.harkin.senate.gov/documents/pdf/5011b69191eb4.pdf
Here’s an excerpt from Harkin’s USA Retirement Fund News Release:
The basic idea is to provide universal access to a new type of privately-run pension that I am calling Universal, Secure, and Adaptable Retirement Funds – USA Retirement Funds for short.
People would make contributions, and their money would be professionally managed by fiduciaries.
For employers, offering a USA Retirement Funds would be as easy as cutting a check. Employers wouldn’t be responsible for administering the funds, or managing the money.
Agree with “jodo” that the following seems to be the Democratic Party mantra, as of late:
“We suck less and manipulate the electorate better than Republicans.”
Thank you, and highly recommended.
Blue
Hmmm…I don’t think it’s against policy to post business emails and/or addresses. Personal ones, yes but for an organization like AARP, I don’t see a conflict.
Well, thank you, Margaret.
No one objected to my posting the Federal Election Commission’s phone number, etc., the other day, so I thought that it would be okay.
And, strongly held views aside, I do try to observe the rules, as I know and understand them. :-)
Blue
Obama is currently in love with the words “balanced approach” which is code for taking a tiny bit from the very rich and a lot more from every one else. Notice how he consistently equivocates on SS. Only a Obamabot believes O will protect Social Security. Mark my words–once he’s back in, the cuts will follow.
ADC14–
You’re right. But even worse, (and I can’t link to the article, because it’s bookmarked on a presently “defunct” computer) I read an article that explained that the words “fairness and balance,” focus grouped well–hence, the use of those two words.
But the real kicker is, the PTB aren’t even referring to fairness and balance in regards to the “American People.” It actually means fair and balanced in regard to “their negotiations,” and what each side will have to give up, to reach a deal. IOW, they want the negotiations to be such, that “their own electoral risks” resulting from imposing austerity, will be fair and balanced (translation–put both parties equally at risk).
Talk about Orwellian, Jeez.
Blue
Well done and well said.
Recommended.
People pay/join AARP to have their age group represented objectively and vigorously, not to back the Democrat or the current incumbent or to sell him to their membership.
If anyone doubts what Obama wants to do about SS and Medicare this is a link to a discussion with David Axelrod on Morning Joe about SS and Medicare:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/axelrod-admits-obama-doesnt-have-plan-keep-social-security-going-bankrupt_652998.html
My question to Axelrod why don’t the American people have a seat at the table? Poll after poll say lift the cap and don’t cut. Remember this is OUR money, not money the DEMS or REPS are giving to us
You are correct, bearman, obviously.
It is OUR money and Social Security is NOT an “entitlement”.
When BOTH legacy parties are lying, and they are … when BOTH legacy parties intend to “fix” Social Security to THEIR “benefit”, meaning that they want the wealthy to get THEIR “hands” on OUR money, then what is the proper and, perhaps, the ONLY sane response which an engaged “electorate”, whose “essential”, if only, “role” in the electoral process is … to “vote”?
Is it to “vote” for the “lesser” (or “more-effective, as Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report very properly has described “it”) “evil” … or should it be something else, something more reflective of a society which will NOT be gamed or lied to any longer?
The legacy parties are NOT going to change, for the current “situation” is most profitable and pleasing to them … now, were this NOT so then there would be ample evidence of not merely “concern” about the plight of millions of Americans, but also there would be decisive action, meaningful and consistent, deliberate and considered, to fundamentally change certain things.
Has anyone heard either legacy party or the “leadership” of those parties call for such a thing?
Instead, we are told that the “debt”, caused, not BY the people, but by mindless and destructive wars, even begun on the basis of lies and “secret” decisions, as well as the most destructive economic criminal fraud in recent history … which will NOT be prosecuted by EITHER legacy party, that the “debt” means that the people and their civil society MUST “pay” for the excesses and abuse promulgated by others, because, the leaders of BOTH legacy parties tell us, that “we” are ALL to blame, equally, for what has occurred and that, therefore, great sacrifice is necessary … and that the poor and the middle class MUST bear the brunt of that great sacrifice … for it is the patriotic thing to do, and besides, the poor and the middle class have NO choice.
Remember money is “speech” and corporations are “people” …
And, since “money” is all that matters and certain “people” are more deserving than others … well, you all get the “picture” …
Drunk or sober, right or wrong, the national security state DEMANDS your unquestioning and silent allegiance. Otherwise, it may readily and easily be determined that you are “aiding and abetting” the “enemy” of the moment.
What was it that the next President once said, humorously, we are told, in his first term? … Ah, yes, “You’ll never see it coming …”
DW