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Social Security …


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Ida May Fuller (b. September 6, 1874 – d. January 31, 1975) was the first American to receive a monthly benefit Social Security check. She received the check, amounting to $22.54, on January 31, 1940.

America is a community. We look out for each other as a nation. We build schools for our children, fund police for our safety and provide a secure retirement for our grandparents.  We don’t toss aside our seniors when they need our help the most. Instead, each generation of American workers invests in the Social Security Trust Fund under the guarantee that someday when they retire or get too sick to work, the Trust Fund will be there for them.

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5 little-known facts about Social Security … Bankrate.com


5 little-known facts about Social Security

By Marilyn Bowden • Bankrate.com

 Most Americans watch their money go into the Social Security trust fund in the form of payroll deductions as soon as they begin working, when retirement seems a long way off. As a result, many go through their working lives without giving it much thought.

Here are a few facts everyone should know about Social Security benefits before making any decisions about retirement.

Who is entitled to retirement benefits?

Just about anybody who has worked for 10 or more years is eligible for Social Security retirement benefits.

“You need 40 quarters of employment, earning a minimum income of $1,120 per quarter,” says Brett Horowitz, principal and wealth manager at Evensky & Katz in Coral Gables, Fla.

The income requirement is so low that “it could be met with seasonal work,” says Richard W. Stumpf, principal at Financial Benefits in Wichita, Kan.

There are some exceptions. Most federal employees hired before 1984 aren’t eligible to participate, Horowitz says. Stumpf adds that pastors may choose not to pay in.

Also, railroad workers and their families generally get benefits through a separate retirement system

How are payouts calculated?

The size of your monthly check is arrived at by a series of calculations.

Your primary insurance amount, or PIA — the benefit you would get at full retirement age — determines the size of your monthly retirement check. According to the Social Security Administration’s website, the PIA is based on the Average Indexed Monthly Earnings, or AIME, as applied to an inflation-adjusted formula. The PIA is then adjusted for whether you take retirement before or after your normal retirement age — 66 for those now reaching retirement age, but gradually adjusted to age 67 for those born after 1954.

You can begin drawing reduced Social Security as early as 62. For every month you delay after reaching full retirement age, up to age 70, the monthly benefit increases.

According to a recent report of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, for someone with an AIME of $5,000 in 2009, the PIA would total $1,971.

In keeping with the original intent behind Social Security — a way to lift seniors out of poverty — lower-wage earners get a higher proportion of their earnings than higher wage earners. The maximum monthly benefit that can be received in 2010 is $2,346.

What are spousal benefits and widow benefits?

If one partner in a marriage earns significantly less than the other, the lower-earning spouse can collect spousal benefits rather than payouts based on his or her own earnings history.

“The spouse can get the greater of their own or 50 percent of the other spouse’s PIA,” Horowitz says. “The lower-earning spouse is not eligible until the higher earner starts getting benefits, but both can start as early as 62.”

Stumpf says this option can be a financial planning tool.

“Imagine a high earner whose spouse is his employee,” he says. “If they cut her pay and transfer the rest to him, when she reaches retirement age, one-half of his income will be significantly higher than what she earned.”

A divorced spouse who was married for more than 10 years and has not remarried can draw against the ex-spouse’s work history. Widows and widowers can receive the higher of their own or their spouse’s monthly payment, but not both.

“That’s why it’s important for the higher earner to delay taking benefits for as long as possible,” says Horowitz.

How broke is Social Security?
 
According to many studies, the Social Security trust fund will be able to cover its retirement and disability obligations for the next 30 years or so, after which there will be a shortfall of about 22 percent. The Senate Special Committee on Aging figures funds will fall short in 2037.

Stumpf thinks those estimates are optimistic.

“The Social Security trustees assume an annual 2.8 percent inflation rate,” he says. “Historic norms are in excess of 3 percent. That’s a big difference when you’re talking about trillions of dollars.

“We could make small adjustments now and bring it to fully fundable status; if we delay, it will be more painful. In 10 years the shortfall will be significantly bigger; in 20 years it will be through the roof.”

Where do payroll deductions for Social Security go?

In theory, they’re held in trust by the government. But it’s not as if your money sits there in the Social Security trust fund waiting for you to retire. After current beneficiaries are paid, surplus dollars are used to buy bonds from the U.S. Treasury. So the trust has the bonds, but the money is now in the Treasury, where Congress can use it for any purpose.

“The Social Security trust fund is … a piggybank holding paper IOUs from Congress,” Stumpf says.

This is the first year that Social Security has had to cash in one of those bonds in order to meet its payroll, says Stumpf.

“From this point forward, an increasing number of those bonds will have to be pulled out every year — and Congress is going to have to find a way to come up with all that money,” he says.

Retirement resources

For most people, Social Security is one component of retirement income — one leg of the so-called three-legged stool.

Pensions are another component, but these days few workers get a pension. The last leg would be personal savings, whether in a 401(k) plan, IRA, an investment account or savings account.

Read Bankrate’s Retirement Guide to learn basics about how to construct a retirement plan.

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Why do Republican​s hate Social Security? …Senator bernie sanders


Republicans hate Social Security because it has been an extraordinary success and has done exactly what it was designed to do. It is the most successful government program in our nation’s history and is enormously popular.

When Social Security was developed, 50 percent of seniors lived in poverty. Today, that number is 10 percent — still too high, but a testament to the success of Social Security.

Republicans have spent years demonizing Social Security and spreading lies about its sustainability. They want to scare Americans and build support for making drastic cuts to the program or privatizing it entirely. Their long-term goal is to end Social Security as we know it, and convert it into a private account system which will enable Wall Street to make hundreds of billions in profits.

The truth is that, today, according to the Social Security Administration, Social Security has a $2.7 trillion surplus and can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 25 years.

Further, because it is funded by the payroll tax and not the U.S. Treasury, Social Security has not contributed one nickel to our deficit.

Now — in a prolonged recession that has decimated the poor and middle class and pushed more Americans into poverty than at any point in modern history — we need to strengthen Social Security. That’s why I, along with nine co-sponsors, have introduced the “Keeping Our Social Security Promises Act.” This legislation would lift the Social Security Payroll tax cap on all income over $250,000 a year, would require millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share into the Social Security Trust Fund, and would extend the program for the next 75 years.

Join me now as a citizen co-sponsor of the Keeping Our Social Security Promises Act.

For 76 years, through good times and bad, Social Security has paid out every benefit owed to every eligible American. The most effective way to strengthen Social Security for the next 76 years is to scrap the payroll tax cap for those earning $250,000 a year or more.

Right now, someone who earns $106,800 pays the same amount of money into Social Security as billionaires like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. That is because today, all income above $106,800 is exempt from the Social Security tax. As a result, 94% of Americans pay Social Security tax on all of their income, but the wealthiest 6% do not.

That makes no sense.

The “Keeping Our Social Security Promises Act” will ensure the long-term solvency of Social Security without cutting benefits, raising the retirement age or raising taxes on the middle class.

Join me and Democracy for America in fighting to strengthen Social Security — Sign on as a citizen co-sponsor of the Keeping Our Social Security Promises Act.

Social Security is keeping tens of millions of seniors out of poverty today. I can think of no more important issue facing our country today than making sure that Social Security remains strong for generations to come.

Thank you.

-Bernie

Senator Bernie Sanders
U.S. Senator from Vermont

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The White House … from the Press Secretary


Fact Sheet: The American Jobs Act

THE AMERICAN JOBS ACT

1. Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire and Grow

  • Cutting the payroll tax in half for 98 percent of businesses:
    The President’s plan will cut in half the taxes paid by businesses on
    their first $5 million in payroll, targeting the benefit to the 98
    percent of firms that have payroll below this threshold.
  • A complete payroll tax holiday for added workers or increased wages:
    The President’s plan will completely eliminate payroll taxes for firms
    that increase their payroll by adding new workers or increasing the
    wages of their current worker (the benefit is capped at the first $50
    million in payroll increases).
  • Extending 100% expensing into 2012: This continues an effective incentive for new investment.
  • Reforms and regulatory reductions to help entrepreneurs and small businesses access capital.

2. Putting Workers Back on the Job While Rebuilding and Modernizing America

  • A “Returning Heroes” hiring tax credit for veterans: This provides tax credits from $5,600 to $9,600 to encourage the hiring of unemployed veterans.
  • Preventing up to 280,000 teacher layoffs,while keeping cops and firefighters on the job.
  • Modernizing at least 35,000 public schools across the country,supporting new science labs, Internet-ready classrooms and renovations at schools across the country, in rural and urban areas.
  • Immediate investments in infrastructure and a bipartisan National Infrastructure Bank, modernizing our roads, rail, airports and waterways while putting hundreds of thousands of workers back on the job.
  • A New “Project Rebuild”, which will put people to work
    rehabilitating homes, businesses and communities, leveraging private
    capital and scaling land banks and other public-private collaborations.
  • Expanding access to high-speed wireless as part of a plan for freeing up the nation’s spectrum.

3. Pathways Back to Work for Americans Looking for Jobs.

  • The most innovative reform to the unemployment insurance program in 40 years:
    As part of an extension of unemployment insurance to prevent 5 million
    Americans looking for work from losing their benefits, the President’s
    plan includes innovative work-based reforms to prevent layoffs and give
    states greater flexibility to use UI funds to best support job-seekers,
    including:

    • Work-Sharing:  UI for workers whose employers choose work-sharing over layoffs.
    • A new “Bridge to Work” program: The plan builds on and improves
      innovative state programs where those displacedtake temporary, voluntary
      work or pursue on-the-job training.
    • Innovative entrepreneurship and wage insurance programs: States will
      also be empowered to implement wage insurance to help reemploy older
      workers and programs that make it easier for unemployed workers to start
      their own businesses.
  • A $4,000 tax credit to employers for hiring long-term unemployed workers.
  • Prohibiting employers from discriminating against unemployed workers when hiring.
  • Expanding job opportunities for low-income youth and adults
    through a fund for successful approaches for subsidized employment,
    innovative training programs and summer/year-round jobs for youth.

4. Tax Relief for Every American Worker and Family

  • Cutting payroll taxes in half for 160 million workers next year:
    The President’s plan will expand the payroll tax cut passed last year
    to cut workers payroll taxes in half in 2012 – providing a $1,500 tax
    cut to the typical American family, without negatively impacting the
    Social Security Trust Fund.
  • Allowing more Americans to refinance their mortgages at today’s near 4 percent interest rates, which can put more than $2,000 a year in a family’s pocket.

5. Fully Paid for as Part of the President’s Long-Term Deficit Reduction Plan.To
ensure that the American Jobs Act is fully paid for, the President will
call on the Joint Committee to come up with additional deficit
reduction necessary to pay for the Act and still meet its deficit
target. The President will, in the coming days, release a detailed plan
that will show how we can do that while achieving the additional deficit
reduction necessary to meet the President’s broader goal of stabilizing
our debt as a share of the economy.

AMERICAN JOBS ACT OVERVIEW

The American people understand that the economic crisis and the deep
recession weren’t created overnight and won’t be solved overnight. The
economic security of the middle class has been under attack for decades.
That’s why President Obama believes we need to do more than just
recover from this economic crisis – we need to rebuild the economy the
American way, based on balance, fairness, and the same set of rules for
everyone from Wall Street to Main Street.  We can work together to
create the jobs of the future by helping small business entrepreneurs,
by investing in education, and by making things the world buys. The
President understands that to restore an American economy that’s built
to last we cannot afford to outsource American jobs and encourage
reckless financial deals that put middle class security at risk.

To create jobs, the President unveiled the American Jobs Act – nearly
all of which is made up of ideas that have been supported by both
Democrats and Republicans, and that Congress should pass right away to
get the economy moving now. The purpose of the American Jobs Act is
simple: put more people back to work and put more money in the pockets
of working Americans. And it would do so without adding a dime to the
deficit.

 Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire and Grow

 New Tax Cuts to Businesses to Support Hiring and Investment:The President is proposing three tax cuts to provide immediate incentives to hire and invest:

  • Cutting the Payroll Tax Cut in Half for the First $5 Million in Wages:This
    provision would cut the payroll tax in half to 3.1% for employers on
    the first $5 million in wages, providing broad tax relief to all
    businesses but targeting it to the 98 percent of firms with wages below
    this level.
  • Temporarily Eliminating Employer Payroll Taxes on Wages for New Workers or Raises for Existing Workers:The
    President is proposing a full holiday on the 6.2% payroll tax firms pay
    for any growth in their payroll up to $50 million above the prior year,
    whether driven by new hires, increased wages or both. This is the kind
    of job creation measure that CBO has called the most effective of all
    tax cuts in supporting employment.
  • Extending 100% Expensing into 2012:The President is
    proposing to extend 100 percent expensing, the largest temporary
    investment incentive in history, allowing all firms – large and small –
    to take an immediate deduction on investments in new plants and
    equipment.
  • Helping Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses Access Capital and Grow: The
    President’s plan includes administrative, regulatory and legislative
    measures – including those developed and recommended by the President’s
    Jobs Council – to help small firms start and expand. This includes
    changing the way the government does business with small firms. The
    Administration will soon announce a plan to accelerate government
    payments to small contractors to help put money in their hands faster.
    The President is also charging his CIO and CTO to, within 90 days, stand
    up a one-stop, online portal for small businesses to easily access
    government services. As part of the President’s Startup America
    initiative, the Administration will work with the SEC to conduct a
    comprehensive review of securities regulations from the perspective of
    these small companies to reduce the regulatory burdens on small business
    capital formation in ways that are consistent with investor protection,
    including expanding “crowdfunding” opportunities and increasing
    mini-offerings. Finally, the President’s plan calls for Congress to pass
    comprehensive patent reform, increase guarantees for bonds to help
    small businesses compete for infrastructure projects and remove
    burdensome withholding requirements that keep capital out of the hands
    of job creators.

 Putting Workers Back on the Job While Rebuilding and Modernizing America 

  • Tax Credits and Career Readiness Efforts to Support Veterans’ Hiring:The
    President is proposing a Returning Heroes Tax Credit of up to $5,600
    for hiring unemployed veterans who have been looking for a job for more
    than six months, and a Wounded Warriors Tax Credit of up to $9,600 for
    hiring unemployed workers with service-connected disabilities who have
    been looking for a job for more than six months, while creating a new
    task force to maximize career readiness of servicemembers.
  • Preventing Layoffs of Teachers, Cops and Firefighters:The
    President is proposing to invest $35 billion to prevent layoffs of up
    to 280,000 teachers, while supporting the hiring of tens of thousands
    more and keeping cops and firefighters on the job. These funds would
    help states and localities avoid and reverse layoffs now, requiring that
    funds be drawn down quickly. Under the President’s proposal, $30
    billion be directed towards educators and $5 billion would support the
    hiring and retention of public safety and first responder personnel.
  • Modernizing Over 35,000 Schools – From Science Labs and Internet-Ready Classrooms to Renovated Facilities:The
    President is proposing a $25 billion investment in school
    infrastructure that will modernize at least 35,000 public schools –
    investments that will create jobs, while improving classrooms and
    upgrading our schools to meet 21st century needs. This
    includes a priority for rural schools and dedicated funding for Bureau
    of Indian Education funded schools. Funds could be used for a range of
    emergency repair and renovation projects, greening and energy efficiency
    upgrades, asbestos abatement and removal, and modernization efforts to
    build new science and computer labs and to upgrade technology in our
    schools. The President is also proposing a $5 billion investment in
    modernizing community colleges (including tribal colleges), bolstering
    their infrastructure in this time of need while ensuring their ability
    to serve future generations of students and communities.
  • Making an Immediate Investment in Our Roads, Rails and Airports:
    The President’s plan includes $50 billion in immediate investments for
    highways, transit, rail and aviation, helping to modernize an
    infrastructure that now receives a grade of “D” from the American
    Society of Civil Engineers and putting hundreds of thousands of
    construction workers back on the job. The President’s plan includes
    investments to improve our airports, support NextGen Air Traffic
    Modernization efforts, and resources for the TIGER and TIFIA programs,
    which target competitive dollars to innovative multi-modal
    infrastructure programs. It will also take special steps to enhance
    infrastructure-related job training opportunities for individuals from
    underrepresented groups and ensure that small businesses can compete for
    infrastructure contracts.The President will work administratively to
    speed infrastructure investment through a recently issued Presidential
    Memorandum developed with his Jobs Council directingdepartments and
    agencies to identify high impact, job-creating infrastructure projects
    that can be expedited in a transparent manner through outstanding review
    and permitting processes. The call for greater infrastructure
    investment has been joined by leaders from AFL-CIO President Richard
    Trumka to U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue.
  • Establishing a National Infrastructure Bank:The
    President is calling for Congress to pass a National Infrastructure Bank
    capitalized with $10 billion, in order to leverage private and public
    capital and to invest in a broad range of infrastructure projects of
    nationaland regional significance, without earmarks or traditional
    political influence. The Bank would be based on the model Senators Kerry
    and Hutchison have championed while building on legislation by Senators
    Rockefeller and Lautenberg and the work of long-time infrastructure
    bank champions like Rosa DeLauro and the input of the President’s Jobs
    Council.
  • Project Rebuild: Putting People Back to Work Rehabilitating Homes, Businesses and Communities.
    The President is proposing to invest $15 billion in a national effort
    to put construction workers on the job rehabilitating and refurbishing
    hundreds of thousands of vacant and foreclosed homes and businesses.
    Building on proven approaches to stabilizing neighborhoods with high
    concentrations of foreclosures, Project Rebuild will bring in expertise
    and capital from the private sector, focus on commercial and residential
    property improvements, and expand innovative property solutions like
    land banks. This approach will not only create construction jobs but
    will help reduce blight and crime and stabilize housing prices in areas
    hardest hit by the housing crisis.
  • Expanding Access to High-Speed Wireless in a Fiscally Responsible Way: The
    President is calling for a deficit reducing plan to deploy high-speed
    wireless services to at least 98 percent of Americans, including those
    in more remote rural communities, while freeing up spectrum through
    incentive auctions, spurring innovation, and creating a nationwide,
    interoperable wireless network for public safety.

Pathways Back to Work for Americans Looking for Jobs 

  • Reform Our Unemployment Insurance System to Provide Greater Flexibility, While Ensuring 6 Million People Do Not Lose Benefits:
    Drawing on the best ideas of both parties and the most innovative
    states, the President is proposing the most sweeping reforms to the
    unemployment insurance (UI) system in 40 years help those without jobs
    transition to the workplace. Alongside these reforms, the President is
    reiterating his call to extend unemployment insurance, preventing 6
    million people looking for work from losing their benefits and extending
    what the independent Congressional Budget Office has determined is the
    highest “bang for the buck” option to increase economic activity.
  • Reemployment Assistance: States will be required to
    design more rigorous reemployment services for the long-term unemployed
    and to conduct assessments to review the longest-term claimants of UI to
    assess their eligibility and help them develop a work-search plan.
    These reforms are proven to speed up UI beneficiaries’ return to work.
  • Work-sharing:The President will expand “work-sharing”
    to encourage arrangements using UI that keep employees on the job at
    reduced hours, rather than laying them off.
  • State Flexibility for Bold Reforms to Put the Long-Term Unemployed Back To Work:The
    President is proposing to provide additional funds to allow states to
    introduce new programs aimed at long-term unemployed workers, including:
  • “Bridge to Work” Programs:States will be able to put
    in place reforms that build off what works in programs like Georgia
    Works or Opportunity North Carolina, while instituting important fixes
    and reforms that ensure minimum wage and fair labor protections are
    being enforced.  These approaches permits long-term unemployed workers
    to continue receiving UI while they take temporary, voluntary work or
    pursue work-based training. The President’s plan requires compliance
    with applicable minimum wage and other worker rights laws.
  • Wage Insurance:  States will be able to use UI to
    encourage older, long-term unemployed Americans to return to work in new
    industries or occupations.
  • Startup Assistance:  States will have flexibility to help long-term unemployed workers create their own jobs by starting their own small businesses.
  • Other Reemployment Reforms:  States will be able to
    seek waivers from the Secretary of Labor to implement other innovative
    reforms to connect the long-term unemployed to work opportunities.
  • Tax Credits for Hiring the Long-Term Unemployed:The President is proposing a tax credit of up to $4,000 for hiring workers who have been looking for a job for over six months.
  • Investing in Low-Income Youth and Adults: The
    President is proposing a new Pathways Back to Work Fund to provide
    hundreds of thousands of low-income youth and adults with opportunities
    to work and to achieve needed training in growth industries. The
    Initiative will do three things: i) support summer and year-round jobs
    for youth, building off of successful programs that supported over
    370,000 such jobs in 2009 and 2010; ii) support subsidized employment
    opportunities for low-income individuals who are unemployed, building
    off the successful TANF Emergency Contingency Fund wage subsidy program
    that supported 260,000 jobs in 2009 and 2010; and iii) support promising
    and innovative local work-based job and training initiatives to place
    low-income adults and youths in jobs quickly.
  • Prohibiting Employers from Discriminating Against Unemployed Workers:
    The President’s plan calls for legislation that would make it unlawful
    to refuse to hire applicants solely because they are unemployed or to
    include in a job posting a provision that unemployed persons will not be
    considered.

 More Money in the Pockets of Every American Worker and Family

  •  Cutting Payroll Taxes in Half for 160 Million Workers Next Year: The
    President’s plan will expand the payroll tax cut passed last December
    by cutting workers payroll taxes in half next year. This provision will
    provide a tax cut of $1,500 to the typical family earning $50,000 a
    year. As with the payroll tax cut passed in December 2010, the American
    Jobs Act will specify that Social Security will still receive every
    dollar it would have gotten otherwise, through a transfer from the
    General Fund into the Social Security Trust Fund.
  • Helping More Americans Refinance Mortgages at Today’s Historically Low Interest Rates: The
    President has instructed his economic team to work with Fannie Mae and
    Freddie Mac, their regulator the FHFA, major lenders and industry
    leaders to remove the barriers that exist in the current refinancing
    program (HARP) to help more borrowers benefit from today’s historically
    low interest rates. This has the potential to not only help these
    borrowers, but their communities and the American taxpayer, by keeping
    borrowers in their homes and reducing risk to Fannie Mae and Freddie
    Mac. 

Fully Paid for as Part of the President’s Long-Term Deficit Reduction Plan. 

  • To ensure that the American Jobs Act is fully paid for, the President
    will call on the Joint Committee to come up with additional deficit
    reduction necessary to pay for the Act and still meet its deficit
    target. The President will, in the coming days, release a detailed plan
    that will show how we can do that while achieving the additional deficit
    reduction necessary to meet the President’s broader goal of stabilizing
    our debt as a share of the economy.

 

$, bn
Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire and Grow

70
Cut employer payroll taxes in half & bonus payroll cut for new jobs/wages

65
Extend 100% expensing in 2012

5
Putting Workers Back on the Job While Rebuilding and Modernizing America

140
Teacher rehiring and first responders

35
Modernizing schools

30
Immediate surface transportation

50
Infrastructure bank

10
Rehabilitation/repurposing of vacant property (neighborhood stabilization)

15
National wireless initiative

0*
Veterans hiring initiative

n.a.
Pathways Back to Work for Americans Looking for Jobs

62
UI Reform and Extension

49
Jobs tax credit for long term unemployed

8
Pathways back to work fund

5
More Money in the Pockets of Every American Worker and Family

175
Cutting employee payroll taxes in half in 2012

175
TOTAL

447

* Proposal has a gross cost of $10bn, but a net deficit reducing impact of $18bn because of spectrum auction proceeds.

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Stuck in a ditch …AFL – CIO


When your car breaks down in a ditch and you need it to get to work, what do you do?

A. Fix it, even if you have to responsibly take out a loan—and work harder over time to pay off the debt, even if it means taking a second job.

B. Stay in the ditch, throw a tantrum and default on your mortgage.

The economy still is reverberating from the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression. But rather than work to fix our economy, congressional Republicans are willing to keep it in a ditch.

Two leading Republicans—Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.)—recently left budget negotiations and are threatening to force default on our national debt if they don’t get their way.

Tell President Obama and congressional Democrats: Stand up to bullies. Don’t let working families get stuck in a ditch.   http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=UZ3aVnXHtxRDesymLrVOYnBq%2BlrJVD9v

When our economy’s broken, we need leaders who will fix it—not politicians who throw temper tantrums when millionaires and billionaires are asked to pay their fair share. Programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are not just lifelines for working people and poor families—they’re all that’s stopping our economy from falling off a cliff again.

With businesses not hiring and wages flat, every dollar in cuts will hurt the economy—and cuts that hurt middle-class and poor Americans will hurt the economy most. Some jaded Republican politicians are willing to let that happen. They figure that if the economy tanks, it’ll cost Barack Obama the 2012 election—and that’s all they care about.

To fix our economy, we can and should be building up the American middle class—not tearing it down. We need to educate our children, build a clean energy future and invest in 21st century American infrastructure that makes us competitive in the world. It’s time to act like the wealthy, compassionate, imaginative country we are—not let hypocritical politicians turn us into an impoverished nation.

Let President Obama and congressional Democrats know working people need them to reject radical demands and stand up to temper tantrums. Demand a fair budget deal that keeps our economy growing.    http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=qp3JHjN2szJ7nA9DG22cUHBq%2BlrJVD9v

Some congressional Republicans say they’ll accept a temporary default on our national debt to get the cuts they demand. But it’s a big lie. A temporary default would hurt Wall Street and Big Banks more than it would hurt working folks. And Wall Street controls enough of our politics these days that it will never happen.

The reality is, a deal will have to be reached soon to keep us from defaulting on our national debt—and if President Obama and congressional Democrats stand strong, that deal doesn’t have to hurt working families.

 Vice President Biden said, “We’re never going to get this done, we’re never going to solve our debt problem if we ask only those who are struggling in this economy to bear the burden and let the most fortunate among us off the hook.” We agree.  

Urge the president—and congressional Democrats—to keep standing with working families against bullies, and to protect America’s future.      http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=2I1tjcLTrunVxECYzq9tm11WX7swzlJA

Thank you for standing with us.

In Solidarity,

Richard L. Trumka
President, AFL-CIO

P.S. The ”Robin Hood in Reverse” budget ideas proposed by congressional Republicans are shocking:
Congressional Republicans want to end Medicare as we know it and put Americans at the mercy of private insurance companies. Congressional Republicans voted for a radical budget that would end Medicare and replace it with underfunded vouchers for private insurance. It would cause a typical 65-year-old to spend $6,359 more per year out of pocket for health care in 2022.
    
Congressional Republicans want hundreds of billions in cuts to Medicaid. These cuts would hurt millions of children and seniors in nursing homes. Medicaid is health care of last resort. It’s for poor kids and our most vulnerable senior citizens. It saves the lives of countless children each year and keeps senior citizens in quality nursing homes. According to Families USA, “Every federal Medicaid dollar that flows into a state stimulates business activity and generates jobs.” Cutting Medicaid will kill jobs—and there are way too few private-sector jobs to fill in the gap.
    
Congressional Republicans want to rob the Social Security Trust Fund. Social Security has a $2.6 trillion surplus—and will pay full benefits through 2037 if we just leave it alone. Even after that, it will pay 78 percent of benefits. It’s completely separate from the federal budget. We have time to make responsible fixes to shore up Social Security in the long term, separate from the immediate budget issues.

Tell President Obama and congressional Democrats: Don’t cut Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Make millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share.