Yes this will be an exercise in shameless begging.
A little over a week ago, I created a petition on the new White House online tool about making Social Security solvent without cutting benefits or raising the retirement age.
It asks that the cap on wages be lifted and that capital gains be subjected to FICA withholdings. This would make Social Security fiscally secure in perpetuity, and make increased benefits to all recipients possible.
This afternoon, it broke 100 signatures, but still needs another 48 signatures before it becomes publicly visible on the White House website.
If we can get another 48 Kossacks to sign it, this would make it the third Kossack initiated petition to break through the 150 signature barrier, which is key to any of the petitions in garnering enough support (5,000 signatures in 30 days) to commit the administration to issue an official response and position on the idea.
So please help us get it there by signing the petition.
For more info on this petition, visit this diary.
Below the fold are a list of all the Kossack initiated petitions that we know of at this point. Please help get them over the top by signing the ones you support.
Kossack Initiated White House Petitions
• End taxpayer subsidies for new nuclear reactors
• Stop the Death Penalty Now in Memory of Troy Davis
• Make Social Security solvent without cutting benefits or raising the retirement age.
• Save the Postal Service
• Stop all military operations and withdraw all combat forces from Afghanistan by October 1, 2012.
• Abolish the death penalty. - this is a second one which is bound to happen when the petitions are invisible until the 150 signature threshold is reached.
• Demand that Congress identify all legislative text that was drafted by industry lobbyists rather than elected officials.
• Adopt the Progressive Caucus Peoples' Budget
• Increase the minimum wage.
• Propose and initiate a financial transaction tax
• Create a Victory Garden 2.0 Initiative to tour the USA and showcase home veggie gardens and community gardens.
• Listen to educators & parents not billionaires who stand to profit from education "reform"
• Investigate George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for war crimes.
• Allow every American Citizen the right to directly purchase Medicare or Medicaid health care coverage as a public option.
• Issue an Executive Order barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation for federal contractors.
• Use the EPA to crack down on CO2. Utilities will borrow from banks (with $ trillions of QE cash) to create green jobs.
• Get out of Iraq completely
• Create a program to assume the mortgage debt of homeowners who are underwater, allowing them to sell their homes.
• Ask Congress to increase the age limit to 30 for young adults to stay on their parents' health insurance.
• Press for a full federal investigation of mortgage fraud before any settlement is made
• Break up too big to fail companies
While the first two petitions are over the initial hurdle of 150 signatures, they still need support in order to get them heard and addressed by the administration. The rest of them obviously need as much support as we can give them to get them publicly viewable.
So whether they are under 150 signatures or over, if you could sign our petitions and share their links on Facebook, Twitter and the rest of your social network, that would be a great. Actively reaching out to the people in your social network and getting them to share the links with their friends and family as well as signing the petitions, can make a real difference.
Thanks in advance if you sign, and help spread the word!
4:26 PM PT: Added a newly created petition by Blue Aardvark about breaking up "too big to fail" companies.
4:54 PM PT: Added a petition that was previously missed as being a Kossack created one.