URGENT Not only are budget cutters in Washington considering cuts to Medicare and Medicaid—but now, they’re looking at a plan to slash Social Security and raise taxes on working families. Tell your senators: Do not cut Social Security. Do not try to fool the American people by claiming inflation “changes” aren’t massive cuts. Leave Medicare and Medicaid alone.

Dear Readers @ Figrd, News

We’ve already warned you about threats to Medicare and Medicaid in Washington. Now, there’s talk of putting another nail in the coffin of America’s struggling middle class with massive cuts in Social Security benefits and higher taxes for working families. A rotten deal could pass any day.

Hurry. Tell your senators: No rotten deal for working families.

Proponents are dressing up their latest proposal to cut Social Security in mumbo-jumbo language about inflation adjustment—but it comes down to a plan to slash Social Security by $112 billion over the next decade, massively increase taxes on poor and middle-class Americans and—you guessed it—almost completely let the rich off the hook.⁽¹⁾

Of course, this kind of plan could never pass if the public understood it. Democrats, Republicans, Independents and Tea Partyers all would oppose it. That’s why members of Congress won’t tell you they’re cutting benefits and raising taxes on poor and middle-class Americans. Instead, they’ll say they’re “changing the way inflation is calculated.”

Tell your senators: The American people reject any cuts to Social Security—no matter what you call them. Leave Medicare and Medicaid alone. Make the millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share for a change.

If politicians are successful in selling this disguised Social Security cut to Americans, Social Security benefits for an average earner retiring in 2011 at age 65 will be slashed by $6,000 over 15 years. The longer you live, the bigger the cut. Have kids, or want to? Well, someone born today who hopes to maybe retire at 70 can kiss retirement security goodbye if the “Chained CPI” method of calculating cost-of-living increases is allowed to bleed Social Security benefits.

And if you think cutting Social Security through inflation trickery is bad, it gets worse. Because, get this: If this method of calculating inflation is applied to income taxes, it’ll be a tax increase on poor and middle-class workers, while having almost no impact on the rich.

The Associated Press reports that “by 2021, taxpayers making between $10,000 and $20,000 would see a 14.5 percent increase in their income taxes with a Chained CPI.” Meanwhile, “taxpayers making more than $500,000 would get a tax increase of 0.3 percent and those making more than $1 million would get a tax increase of 0.1 percent.”⁽²⁾

Tell your senators: Do not cut Social Security and slam working families with these higher taxes. Leave Medicare and Medicaid alone. Raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires, not working families.

If we act now, there’s still time to demand we balance our long-term budget deficit in a way that’s fair to working families. But we have to hurry. A deal to keep America from defaulting on its debt needs must pass by Aug. 2, and we need to make sure working families aren’t the ones who make all the sacrifices to keep tax cuts for the millionaires and billionaires who destroyed our economy.

In Solidarity,

Manny Herrmann
Online Mobilization Coordinator, AFL-CIO

P.S. Tens of thousands of AFL-CIO activists already have drawn a line in the sand on Medicare and Medicaid: No cuts, no matter what they’re called. Now we need to draw a line in the sand against any plan to cut Social Security. And we need to reject the “Chained CPI” inflation scam, which won’t just slash Social Security, but will cause a regressive tax increase on working families—while letting millionaires and billionaires almost completely off the hook. Are you with us?

Tell your senators you’re standing firm.

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