Published on Tuesday, April 9, 2013 by Common Dreams
Sanders and Over 2 Million Others to Obama: Don't Cut Social Security!
Protesters deliver petition to White House, call on Obama to keep his word
(Photo via Twitter / SenSanders) Sen. Bernie Sanders (V. I.) rallied with fellow protesters outside the White House Tuesday afternoon to present petitions comprised of well over two million signatures rejecting President Obama's upcoming proposal to cut Medicare and Social Security in budget negotiations.
President Obama's yet-to-be-unveiled budget will include cuts to Social Security through the "Chained CPI" scheme and $305 billion in cuts to Medicare over one decade, according to reports on Friday, making him the first "Democratic president [that] has officially proposed to cut the Democratic Party’s signature New Deal program, Social Security," blogger Digbywrote last week.
During the rally, Sanders called on Obama to keep his original campaign promise of leaving the essential programs unscathed, saying the sick and elderly stand to lose out the greatest while corporations and wealthy Americans stand to gain an even larger piece of the pie.
Sanders stated:
When one out of four major profitable corporations pays nothing in federal income taxes, we know how we can deal with deficit reduction in a way that is fair.Some of you may remember that when President Barack Obama was running for president in 2008, he said that he would not cut Social Security. We want the president to remember and not go back on his word.
Joining Sanders and his supporters were several groups including the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the National Organization for Women, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America, the Campaign for America’s Future and MoveOn.org.
Organizers from the more than 15 groups stacked nine file boxes containing petition signatures in front of the White House, Associated Press reports.
"If they vote to cut Social Security, they may not be returning to Washington," Sanders told the crowd. Protesters held signs reading "No Chained CPI" and "We earned our Social Security."
"I am terribly disappointed and will do everything in my power to block President Obama’s proposal to cut benefits for Social Security recipients through a chained consumer price index," Sanders stated last week.
Please go here for the complete article + video: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/04/09-7
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere... A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere... A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
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