Coalition Launches Drive to Fight Social Security Cuts
AFL-CIO Media Outreach fellow Jennifer Angarita contributed to this report.
As Social Security turns 75 years old Aug. 14, the nation’s most successful social program likely will be under attack by the federal budget deficit commission, which, by all accounts, is considering benefits cuts and raising the retirement age.
Today, more than 60 groups, including the AFL-CIO, announced the creation of the coalition Strengthen Social Security…Don’t Cut It. The group is launching a major mobilization to push back the commission’s phony assertions, backed by the Wall Street spin machine, that claim Social Security is a major component of the budget deficit and is teetering on the brink of disaster.
In a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., the group outlined plans to build support in Congress to fight benefits cuts and press candidates this election to pledge to fight any move to raise the retirement age or privatization scheme. Says Ed Coyle, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans:
Bold Action Needed to End Unemployment Crisis
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America’s economy is not working for everybody and progressives must demand our elected leaders fight for economic justice—and economic justice begins with good jobs, said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. This afternoon, Trumka spoke at a press conference and later on a panel at the America’s Future Now conference here in Washington, D.C.
Americans of all political persuasions are angry, and rightly so. We need political leaders to speak to that anger, to harness it to attack the plutocracy that has run our country into the ground, to build an economy that works for all. But instead our politics seems to be about a choice between apostles of hate masquerading as populists, and voices of complacency masquerading as progressivism.
In an emotional presentation, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert said he was “infuriated at the attitude” of the media and political leaders that the unemployed are suffering, “but that’s just too bad.” The nation is wasting its most valuable resource—its people, he said.
There is no real sense of urgency. The media and the government are clueless as to the scope of the problem.
CNA’s Donna Smith, National Organization of Women’s 2009 Woman of Action
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Donna Smith, a community organizer and legislative representative for the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), was recently honored as the National Organization for Women’s (NOW‘s) 2009 Woman of Action.
Smith first came to the public’s attention in Michael Moore’s 2007 movie, “SICKO.” Despite having health insurance and even a health savings account, Donna and her husband Larry were forced to move into their daughter’s basement after being unable to pay staggering health care costs—and were left in financial ruin.
Donna’s husband, Larry, suffered three heart attacks and Donna was diagnosed and treated for uterine cancer. There is even a scene in the movie “SICKO” where Michael Moore takes Donna to Cuba to get the necessary treatment their insurance wouldn’t pay for.
