Stay A Step Ahead
To The Editor:
Perhaps my personal “favorite” of today’s growing number of radical-right-wing conservative-Republican “greatest hits” of operating out of what Paul Krugman [American economist, columnist with The New York Times] calls “bad faith” and what Jane Mayer [investigative journalist, staff writer with The New Yorker] calls using “stealth tactics” is how they try to deceive, mislead, and fool the public into believing that they want to “save” and “reform” Social Security when, in reality, many of them want to cut/reduce the benefits and, eventually, to abolish it entirely. Just one example of this is a former Speaker of the House who often said that he wanted to “save” and “reform” Social Security, yet right at his own website you would discover that he tried on several occasions to have the benefits cut/reduced. So, their way of “saving” and “reforming” Social Security is to totally abolish it. That is slick. You have to be a step ahead of these people.
Sincerely,
Stewart B. Epstein
2266 Westside Drive, Rochester, N.Y.
(Retired college professor of Sociology, Social Work, and Psychology at West Virginia University, Slippery Rock University, and Keuka College.)
I fail to see the Newtown connection in this nonconstructive partisan letter which apparently seeks to scare local seniors. Mr. Epstein’s letter does nothing to further the conversation around a legitimate policy issue in the future of Social Security which according to SSA.gov “if trust fund assets are exhausted without reform, benefits will necessarily be lowered,” citing lower birth rates. This is an area where we need an open and objective, multi generational, national dialogue, not fear based political propaganda.
Beautifully worded, Ryan and spot on! Thanks for your common sense approach.
What would you call the suggestions, of the current House Committee to “Means Test” Social Security recipients if not reducing benefits. We paid into the system, we are due our benefits back.