The 43 Million are all the elderly Americans who depend, each and every month, on a retirement check from Social Security.
The One is Pete Peterson, Godfather of the Deficit Hawk movement and eminence grise behind President Obama's semi-secret "Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform."
Peterson's strategy is simple. It hasn't changed for a decade. It is to cry "Wolf," blame the government's huge federal deficits on Social Security and Medicare, and slash these great social programs to the bone.
43,000,000 to 1: On the face of it this doesn't look like an even fight. Especially since the 43,000,000 have truth on their side:
Social Security is in the black. It's the rest of the government that's drowning in red ink. Social Security is building a $4-trillion surplus. The rest of the government is already $12-trillion in the hole!
But Peterson has carefully constructed a mighty lie. And as Winston Churchill said, "A lie gets halfway around the world before truth gets its pants on."
These days, truth would be well-advised to sleep with its pants on.
William Greider, who writes frequently about the assault on Social Security, warns us: "People need to make a lot of noise." So we've put a lot of noise in the form of a letter we think every progressive Congressperson should read.
We're damned sure that the Republican Party – desperate as it is to appease Tea Party zealots – will sign on to Peterson's lie lock, stock, and barrel. Which will provide a precious opportunity for progressives to reject that lie and start to rebuild a bond with America's working class.
Here's the letter:
Dear Congressman Nadler,
Greetings!
You don’t know me, but I live in your district.
I need to talk to you about Social Security.
Here, by the way, is my Social Security card. (The number’s been changed to protect the innocent.) You can readily see how ancient it is.
I’m retired now. But my whole working life I paid into Social Security. In fact I don’t remember ever bringing home a paycheck that hadn’t already had that “FICA” tax deducted from it!
And now – Glory Be! I depend on Social Security to stay alive.
Did you know, Congressman, that there are 95,000 people like me in your district?
Hard to believe but true: on average there are 95,000 retired people in every congressional district who depend on a monthly check from Social Security.
And oh yes – they almost all vote.
Plus – there’s another 22,000 folks in a typical district who depend on a disability check from Social Security. And they vote, too.
And here’s something else to think about:
My daughter and son-in-law also live in your district.
And they’re paying into Social Security every payday.
And although their faith’s been shaken by cynics who keep telling them Social Security will soon go broke, they plan to live on it when they retire, too.
Did you know there are 372,000 people like them living in your district? Imagine that – 372,000! And lot of them vote, too.
Between us all – many retired and many more still working – we’ve put over 2.5 trillion more dollars into Social Security than we’ve taken out.
Our 2.5 trillion of excess dollars are invested in the Social Security Trust Fund. And even with the terrible hit the economy’s taken this year, that Trust Fund just keeps going up.
Contrary to the scary front-page stories recently published in The New York Times and elsewhere, the Trust Fund will end 2010 with billions of dollars more than it had at the start of the year.
And that’ll be true next year, and the year after, and every year for more than a decade.
(The scary stories forgot to mention the little matter of the interest the Trust Fund earns every year, which amounts to over a hundred billion dollars each year.)
Now the President has just appointed a “National Commission” to figure out how to get a handle on the huge federal deficits the government is running up.
Congressman, I sincerely urge you to cast a cold eye on any pronouncements that come out of this commission with regard to Social Security!
Because the truth is, in the near term, there is not a damned thing this commission needs to do to keep Social Security healthy.
And even in the long term, they must not take the drastic steps they are already hinting at.
They don’t have to cut retirees’ benefits.
They don’t have to raise the basic FICA tax rate.
They don’t have to push back the retirement age two years, or one year, or even one day.
In fact the only thing they have to do – eventually – is apply the FICA tax uniformly to higher incomes which are now exempt.
That one tweak – which can be done gradually, starting, say, in 2016 – will turn up as much as a 25% increase in Social Security’s tax revenues.
Congressman Nadler, why am I telling you this? Do the math:
I have identified 489,000 constituents of yours who are deeply interested in the health of Social Security.
Do you really want to sit by silently and let 489,000 of your constituents be lied and cheated out of the one source of retirement income they’ve been counting on?
Don’t let that happen, Congressman Nadler.
Or I assure you: there will be hell to pay.
Yours truly,
Gene Case
