Fellow Democrats, after an extremely demoralizing off-year election cycle for our Party, in a time where there have been so many issues and arguments that have divided the Party into bickering factions and niches, a line has been drawn in the sand that should unite Democrats of all stripes to a common rallying cause. Protecting Social Security from those who would destroy it. Social Security is under deliberate and malignant assault. The deranged extremist fringe far-Rightwing ideological zealots of the House Republican caucus have decided to deliberately engineer a Social Security crisis. No matter what your issues with the Democratic Party, now is the time to set aside other matters and begin to come together for the greater public good.

A huge number of Social Security beneficiaries are disabled Americans and other non-Retirees who would be in dire crisis without the aid of a vital part of the most important program within the American Social Safety Net. On Tuesday, the Republicans in the US House acted like the predatory cowards and gutless worms that they are and created a rule that would prevent clean reallocations to fund the nation's Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). This, like the deliberate sabotaging of the US Postal Service by creating forces that no other agency or arm of the US Government has to deal with, is the kind of cancer you get from Conservative Republican reigns of error and terror. This is a wake-up call to rally. All of us. United together.

Let us be clear. "Reformers" are never people acting in blatant bad faith and with malice of intent to their actions. Damn the Village, and Social Security Saboteurs, and walk a wall for the sick, the poor, the eldery, and the disabled. There is no "good" Social Security and "bad" Social Security, there is only Social Security. The Republicans are not interested in "reforming" Social Security, they want to destroy it and use the lazy "both siderisms" of the Village news media to obfuscate their actions and their agenda. This is a manufactured crisis. Pure and simple. It is also a challenge to Americans of good faith who support the Safety Net. Time to stand up.

Here we have an act of deliberate political terrorism and social sabotage that is being carried out to disrupt the lives of Americans in crisis and on the margins. We must all say "HELL NO!"

“Today, House Republicans are trying to change rules that have been in place for decades as a way to attack social insurance,” Brown said. “Rather than solve the short-term problems facing the Social Security Disability program as we have in the past, Republicans want to set the stage to cut benefits for seniors and disabled Americans.” Reallocation is a simple procedure used by Congress to rebalance how Social Security payroll tax revenues are apportioned between the two trust funds - the equivalent of transferring money from a checking to a savings account. Reallocation is commonsense, bipartisan policy that has been utilized by both parties 11 times since 1957– most recently in 1994. At that time, it was projected that reallocation would keep the trust fund solvent until 2016. “Reallocation has never been controversial, but detractors working to privatize Social Security will do anything to manufacture a crisis out of a routine administrative function,” Brown continued. “Reallocation is a routine housekeeping matter that has been used 11 times, including four times under Ronald Reagan. Modest reallocation of payroll taxes would ensure solvency of both trust funds until 2033. But if House Republicans block reallocation, insurance for disabled Americans, veterans, and children could face severe cuts once the trust fund is exhausted in 2016.” United States Senator Sherrod Brown Condemns Dangerous Move That Would Undermine Social Security by Attacking Disability Insurance



This is an unprecedented rule change that would prevent the House of Representatives from passing clean reallocations of the Social Security Trust Fund in the future. It's bad policy, bad politics, bad governance, and it must not go unanswered or unchallenged. We have all had our issues, with our Party, with each other, with low-information voters whose actions and non-actions confound and frustrate us to the cores of our beings. This is a matter that everyone can and should be made to understand. The GOP is attempting to sabotage Social Security, and do it while trying to present themselves as being deeply concerned about the future of the Social Security program. Remember what they did to the Post Office in the name of "concern".

Stand with Sherrod Brown. Stand with Elizabeth Warren. On Social Security? We are all united.



The GOP is inventing a Social Security crisis that will threaten benefits for millions & put our most vulnerable at risk. — Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) January 6, 2015

Social Security Privatization was a disaster, so, they'll just have to do what they do best. Take hostages. Do what we say, or the poors and the sicks get it. They didn't even have the guts to be all up front about it, because they know how ugly things could get for them if they didn't act like cockroaches when a light goes on. When the House set down its parliamentary rules for the new House, they snuck in the change blocking Congress from shifting funds to stop a 2016 shortfall in Social Security's disability insurance program. This is something that has been done for decades. Any crisis is a man-made crisis. It's like filling up the fire department with arsonists. We should say so. It's time for a fight. They picked it. So. Let's give them all hell.

Let no one distract you from the real agenda here, neither in the media or in DC. Nobody who cares about the solvency or stability of Social Security would do this. Ever. It is irresponsible and stupid and bold-faced in bad outcomes being a feature and not a bug of the act. You cannot trust a Movement Conservative Republican to protect Social Security, and you must not assume that low-information voters are aware of what is going on, and who is, and who is not, on their side and on the right side of history. They want a war? We should give them one. Think of every frustration and heartache that American politics has dished out to you since the 2012 election. Since the 2008 election. Here is a cause for which you can freely take the gloves off.

From Social Security Works:



The New Republican Attack on Social Security Starts Now!



(Washington, DC) Republican opponents of Social Security have not wasted even a single day in their plan to dismantle Social Security brick by brick. What should be a dry, mundane exercise — the adoption of new rules by the newly convening House of Representatives — has turned into a stealth attack on America’s working families. A technical amendment, known as “reallocation” — something that has been done many times over the history of Social Security, something that few persons other than actuaries and other Social Security experts ever know about — must be enacted in the current Congress to ensure that all Social Security benefits continue to be paid in full and on time. The change is analogous to what investors do when they rebalance their accounts, but in the case of Social Security, a failure to rebalance will result in an unnecessary and completely avoidable cut in benefits paid to workers who have serious and permanent disabilities and to their families. Like other stealth attacks against the American people’s Social Security, the groundwork is being laid in advance. It will suddenly explode sometime in the next two years. The rule change would prohibit a simple reallocation! It will require more significant and complex changes to Social Security. In other words, the Republican rule will allow Social Security to be held hostage – something we anticipated and warned about in our new book, Social Security Works! Why Social Security Isn’t Going Broke and How Expanding It will Help Us All (The New Press, 2015) This is no way for elected officials, who are supposed to be servants of the people, to treat American citizens. Hostage-taking to force changes that the American people do not want to a vital program like Social Security is no way to run the United States of America. New Republican Attack On Social Security Starts Now ###



Social Security Works is the lead group in the Strengthen Social Security Coalition, a coalition comprised of more than 320 national and state organizations representing more than 50 million Americans from many of the nation’s leading aging, labor, disability, women’s, children, consumer, civil rights and equality organizations.

17% of the deficit, $$Trillions has been borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund, an inconvenient truth Congress Sweeps under the rug.

Pay Back the Money Borrowed From Social Security Throughout its 75 year history, Social Security has provided critical economic security to millions of retirees, families, children and the disabled. Social Security is paid for by the dedicated contributions of workers and their employers, has administrative costs of less than one percent, and since it cannot borrow to fund its operations, Social Security does not contribute to the deficit. No wonder that Americans from all walks of life consistently and overwhelmingly support our nation's most successful social insurance program -- a level of support that is not achieved by other governmental programs. Social Security currently has a $2.6 trillion surplus which has been building up since the 1983 amendments and is intended to help absorb the retirement of the baby boomers. This surplus is invested in US Treasury securities that are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. According to the Social Security Trustees 2010 report, Social Security can pay full benefits until 2037, at which time, if nothing were done to strengthen its financing, Social Security would still be able to pay about 78 percent of benefits. This quarter of a century means there is time to strengthen its financing without cutting benefits for future beneficiaries. The American people will insist that Congress do what is needed for the program to pay full benefits and protect these benefits they were promised and have earned. Pay Back the Money Borrowed From Social Security



I was asked in the comments by War on Error to add this information a link to an article that expands on the idea: