PRESS RELEASE

Butler County Democratic Committee

 

Create Jobs and Keep Social Security Strong

Resolution adopted September 29th by the Butler County Democratic Committee of Pennsylvania: To Create Jobs, Reduce the Deficit and Keep Social Security Strong:

1)   We agree with President Obama that tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans should be retired. Value: $50 billion per annum.(a) The top one percent of Americans earn 23.5% of the total national income with salaries for some on Wall Street being as high as 1 Billion Dollars a year.(b) In 1970 that same top 1% earned 9% of the national income.

2)   We agree with President Obama that Middle Class tax cuts and educational tax credits should be maintained.

3)   We call for the elimination of the,”Cap,” on contributions to Social Security. Value $130 billion per annum.(c) Most Americans contribute to FICA from every dollar they ever earn. Americans with higher incomes stop contributing once their income reaches $106,800. Obama spoke of eliminating this cap during the campaign.

We are on a cusp! Four weeks from now will be the most important mid-term election of our lifetimes. Unemployment stands at 9.5% and 60 million Americans are on Medicaid. Eligibility requirements for Medicaid differ from state to state but, basically Medicaid starts when a family has nothing left. Sixty million Americans, half of them being children, have nothing. We are at once a nation of billion dollar incomes and working families living in homeless shelters or automobiles.

We are a nation at war with over 100,000 of our young people in harm’s way thousands of miles from their homes and families.

We believe that we have a President with the potential for greatness. We have an intellect in the White House that understands the struggles of the working poor and the disadvantaged. Give this historic President a solid team in the legislature and in the words of Hubert Humphrey, “We can make this country sing.”

We have a President who understands the chicanery of bankers and the ponzi schemes of Wall Street. He needs a legislature that will stand with him as he extricates this great nation from the misuse that he inherited.

America has a clear choice in this election. Vote for the Republicans who threaten to freeze spending in a time of war and who will strive to wrench trillions of dollars from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Or vote for the Democrats who may by adopting this aggressive plan begin to pay down the deficit, restore ethics, and put America back to work.

Social Security has always paid for itself. It does not and has not contributed to the national debt. Social Security has used its surplus to purchase US Treasury Bonds and that surplus has then been folded into the Treasury. With the adoption of point 3 we have created a surplus of $130 billion.

This new additional Social Security surplus should be used to buy US Treasury Bonds as is the present practice and that money, once in the Treasury, should be used to begin the rebuilding of our infrastructure as proposed by our President, i.e.,  an improved electrical grid, broadband, bridges, roads, high speed passenger rail transportation, etc. There is so much that has been ignored in the last ten years and by addressing these needs we would employ literally millions of Americans. Perhaps, once again, our great and diverse people will have hope.

Yes We Can.

a)    Congressional Research Service: The Bush Tax Cuts and the Economy, September 3, 2010.

b)   Reich, Robert B. Aftershock, The Next Economy and the

America’s Future, page 95.2010

c)“Taxing all earnings would indeed amount to $1.3 trillion

increase over the next ten years,” FactCheck.org,

Barack Obama on Social Security, November 15, 2007.