“Believe them when they say they are coming after Medicare and Social Security.”

Several articles around the internet in the past weeks indicate that older Americans are finally starting to understand that the Republican Party is in no way acting in their behalf. How so many older folks ever got fooled into thinking  Republicans were ever going to work in their behalf is beyond me. Despite having attained many years of experience they were prone to believing the con job lies Republicans that are the main feature of Republican rhetoric and campaigns.

CNN postulates that older voters believed the lie that Republicans gurgled that the Obama administration was taking money from Medicare. The truth is that money from Medicare was transferred to the ACA so that costly health problems could be addressed earlier and thus not become a huge liability to Medicare as people waited to get care when Medicare kicked in.

From CNN:   

Historically, Democrats were seen as the party of seniors. President Franklin Roosevelt made Social Security one of the landmark accomplishments of the New Deal. Decades later another Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson, would push health care coverage as an entitlement for the elderly and make Medicare one of the cornerstones of his Great Society program. In subsequent elections as social issues came to the fore, seniors have tended to split their votes more evenly or side with Republicans. But in 2010 with the rise of the Tea Party and the generational and societal change ushered in by the presidential election of Democrat Barack Obama, elderly voters turned decidedly towards the GOP. Republicans helped drive that process by asserting that president Obama’s 2010 signature health care reform legislation would defund Medicare. And that would be a GOP rallying cry throughout the Obama presidency.

As Republicans cemented their hold on all three branches of government plus many state houses, their long held desire to crush any and every vestige of the safety net built in the most part by Democratic administrations is no longer kept hidden from view. The most visible and popular among these safety net programs are Social Security and Medicare, the two programs that are at the very heart of older Americans ability to live and remain relatively healthy.

With midterm elections fast approaching that look like Republicans strangle hold on power may be broken, they see their chances of finally killing Social Security and Medicare fleeting. Thus they have emerged from behind obscure language and hidden messages to openly call for “reforming” Social Security and Medicare. By “reforming” they mean to drastically reduce or eliminate these programs.

The money that is now targeted for Social Security and Medicare will instead go to pay for the huge tax cuts for the wealthy that they enacted last December and are attempting to increase as this is written. Think about that for a second. Republicans are hell bent on taking money from programs that keep the elderly and disabled alive in order to give their rich friends another massive tax cut.

This will also affect all younger people in America as elderly will be forced back into the work force and thus will be competing for jobs against younger applicants. Or those who would have been considering retirement will simply continue to work, thus not opening positions for younger workers. With a larger pool of workers to choose from, businesses will use the glut of workers to drive down the cost of labor. Stated more plainly wages will drop.

And don’t forget that Mom and Dad will no longer be able to afford to live by themselves, so America will be reliving those wonderful days when 3 or 4 generations would live under one roof. All brought to you by the Republican Party so the rich can get richer!

At Common Dreams Jake Johnson quotes Topher Spiro of the Center For American Progress warns us to: “Believe them when they say they are coming after Medicare and Social Security.”

More from Jake Johnson’s article: (much more at the link)

As the GOP plows ahead with another round of budget-exploding tax cuts for the rich just before the crucial 2018 midterms, President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser and former television personality Larry Kudlow confirmed on Monday that the White House will push for cuts to life-saving safety net programs like Medicare and Social Security if the GOP retains control of Congress in November.

“We have to be tougher on spending,” Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, declared in remarks to the Economic Club of New York.

Asked when Social Security and Medicare will be targeted for “reforms”—which, as one advocacy group noted, is “code for massive cuts“—Kudlow said, “Everyone will look at that—probably next year.”

“Believe them when they say they are coming after Medicare and Social Security,” Topher Spiro, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, wrote on Twitter in response to Kudlow’s comments. “This election is the last chance to stop them.”

One more warning from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Like her or not Pelosi is really looking out for the welfare of seniors and the disabled when she stated:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warned Wednesday that Republicans will try to target health-care and social programs in 2019 if they retain control of Congress, an agenda she called a “nightmare for working families and seniors.”

“Make no mistake: this is who Republicans are. They’ve had united government for nearly two years in Washington, and they’ve spent every moment looking to either enrich the wealthiest 1 percent or trying to tear health care away from millions nationwide,” Pelosi tweeted.

She cited a series of recent news stories that indicated Republicans will prioritize cutting Medicaid and Medicare benefits, and possibly Social Security. She also highlighted a story that the GOP may look to renew its efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2019.

If you are not totally independently wealthy you better think long and hard about voting for any Republican in this election. Their policies are only good for the extremely wealthy in our society, not for you or me. And that is true at the state and national level. Just look at how Kim Reynolds has turned a big chunk of Iowa’s Medicaid dollars over to private industry pretty much without any guidelines for success.

Oh – and don’t forget if they don’t totally gut Social Security it will probably be changed to a system of investing in stocks and bonds. That would include a possibility of severe crashes. It would also include big management fees. This would be money out of your pocket.

Just think about it.