Dismantling the Social Safety Net - A Republican Theme

Not only do Lamar Smith (R-TX) and the Republican Party want to destroy Medicare which provides guaranteed health care to millions of American seniors, now Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) has filed a bill to dismantle Social Security as well by turning it into a privatized system. Sessions calls it the SAFE Act but it should be labeled the UNSAFE Act due to its failure to protect seniors by ensuring that they have enough income to avoid poverty in their last years. Just think the benefits guaranteed by our current system would instead become bets in the casino known as Wall Street.

I don’t know about you but my private investments in mutual funds still haven’t fully recovered from the losses caused by the Great Recession. Let’s not forget that these are the same folks who also believe that Wall Street is over-regulated even though we’ve had to jail Bernie Madoff and numerous others for stealing from investors who will never receive full restitution. Even Alan Greenspan now admits that lax regulation of Wall Street didn’t work.

Do you want to trust the financing of your last years to that bunch of sharks? Are you willing to risk having nothing at 78 years old?