Received this e-mail today from Congressman Bruce Braley (D. IA-01), who is running for Senator Tom Harkin's (D. IA) seat:
When the Tea Party and the out-of-touch special interests look at Social Security and Medicare, all they see are numbers on a spreadsheet.
But the fact is, millions of senior citizens depend on the essential support that Social Security and Medicare provide.
These benefits are earned through decades of hard work. They represent a promise to the American people that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can retire with dignity and security. And it’s up to us to make sure that they are protected.
Add your voice to mine and call on the Tea Party to stop threatening Social Security and Medicare. Sign the petition today.
http://www.brucebraley.com/...
Year after year, extreme Tea Partiers in Congress have tried to privatize Social Security. They’d rather leave our senior’s hard-earned savings in the hands of the same Wall Street bankers responsible for the economic crash of 2008 -- one of the worst in our history.
And the same goes for Medicare where, for three years running, the radical ideologues in the House have passed a toxic plan to gut Medicare as we know it and turn it into a voucher system that benefits Big Insurance.
Friend, we can’t let this happen -- we can’t let the Tea Party treat our senior citizens like that.
Help me fight back against the Tea Party and their radical agenda. Take just a minute and sign my petition right now.
http://www.brucebraley.com/...
Thank you for supporting our seniors and for helping protect Social Security and Medicare.
Bruce
You can add your name here:
http://www.brucebraley.com/...
FYI, Braley is against cuts to Social Security and Medicare including the chained CPI that was brought up in Obama's last budget proposal:
http://www.bleedingheartland.com/...
I am very concerned about the president's proposal to try to reduce the deficit by switching to a chained CPI calculation, particularly because budgets are moral documents, and they reflect our nation's priorities. I believe it's immoral to balance the budget on the back of seniors and disabled Americans, who are the ones who will be most dramatically affected by switching the consumer price index adjustment for Social Security benefits.
There are a host of other ways we could address that problem, and addressing it in a way that is going to take money out of the hands of Iowans--for example, if this were to become law, and you lived to [be] 85 [years old], you would see a 9.7 percent reduction in what you receive from Social Security over your lifetime. Many Iowans who are seniors and disabled are living on fixed incomes right now. That [chained] CPI does not often reflect the real cost of spending that seniors and disabled Iowans deal with on an annual basis, and so I'm concerned about that. - Rep. Bruce Braley (D. IA-01), Bleeding Heartland, 4/10/13