Support Social Security against the Republican plan to take this important benefit away from beneficiaries

"we share the alarm of President Biden and Barack Obama at proposals from leading Republican senators to terminate the hitherto unbreakable guarantee of benefits under both Social Security and Medicare"

August 14, 1935 - The Social Security Act was signed into law by President Roosevelt on August 14, 1935. In addition to several provisions for general welfare, the new Act created a social insurance program designed to pay retired workers age 65 or older a continuing income after retirement.

Echo letter to the editor of The New York Times:

Re “G.O.P. Signals Plans to Shrink Social Security” (front page, of the NYT, on Nov. 3):

Your article discussing the partisan wrangling over Republicans’ plans for (spiking!) Social Security and Medicare is missing an important piece — discussion of a viable solution other than cutting benefits.

As descendants of the creators of Social Security — F.D.R.; his vice president Henry A. Wallace; his labor secretary, Frances Perkins; and his commerce secretary Harry Hopkins — we share the alarm of President Biden and Barack Obama at proposals from leading Republican senators to terminate the hitherto unbreakable guarantee of benefits under both Social Security and Medicare — benefits earned by a lifetime of payroll taxes taken out of every paycheck.

Yes, both programs face solvency challenges. But, there is an obvious solution other than curbing benefits: Eliminate the cap on the amount of income that is subject to the payroll tax — currently $147,000 — which ridiculously favors the wealthy. A C.E.O. who earns $10 million pays less than 0.01 percent, an incomprehensible injustice to a nurse paying 6.2 percent.

We understand the toxicity of tax increases in this political season. So let us fervently channel our politically savvy ancestors. To honor the promises made generations ago to American workers, make today’s wealthiest pay the same payroll tax rate as everybody else.

Henry Scott Wallace
Jim Roosevelt Jr.
Tomlin Perkins Coggeshall
June Hopkins

Republican's intend to destroy Social Security

Republicans continue to chant meaningless one liners about inflation and the economy, but do not offer a coherent plan in response to their own rhetoric. One life supporting policy the GOP would like to destroy is the Social Security safety net. This slash and burn idea makes no sense.

An echo opinion letter published in the Arizona Pinal Central news supports Social Security*, and describes why!

Before voters, like Arizonians, are pulled by our collective purse strings to the November 2022, election, some thoughts that might be a little more rational than a knee jerk reaction to cutting Social Security are important to understand.

Our American Social Security program came about during a grim time in U.S. history 87 years ago. It has made a helpful difference to U.S. workers in their retirement years. It is comprehensive. While it doesn't settle recipients into luxury in retirement, at least there is a little something for everybody based on each individual's earnings.

Funded by U.S. workers' contributions, the program was tapped many years later to benefit people who, through no fault of there own, suffer — such as children who are suddenly without responsible, wage-earning parents for one reason or another. That could be due to a parent's untimely death, debilitating injuries, alcohol or drug abuse, or abandonment. Truly, there is a need but those programs should never have operated on funds that were contributed by U.S. workers.

"Maybe we should privatize Social Security?" No! 

GOP emergency alert!  Do not cut Social Security! 

Instead, maybe we should cull out the odd programs that drain Social Security and privatize them. (Or, an even better idea, is to prevent the Congress from borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund's investments, just because they can!)

Restore Social Security as it was originally intended for U.S. workers and their surviving spouses. To even think about tampering with this uniquely American program that has been a help for 87 years to those who pay into it seems un-American.

From Barbara Fox, Casa Grande

*President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Bill into law on August 14, 1935, only 14 months after sending a special message to Congress on June 8, 1934, that promised a plan for social insurance as a safeguard "against the hazards and vicissitudes of life." The 32-page Act was the culmination of work begun by the Committee on Economic Security (CES), created by the President on June 29, 1934, and became, as he said at the signing ceremony, "a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete."

Wrong minded right wing American history about immigration

There is an ironic inverse correlation about how Republicans misunderstand immigration. 

In other words, conservative Americans who oppose immigration reforms or a path to citizenship aka "amnesty", are ignoring their their owns heritages while truth and facts don't support their extremist points of view.

General George Washington needed the help of the French in the American Revolution

Apparantly, when it comes to immigration, many Americans, who are particularly right wing conservatives, seem to think this issue isn't about "us".  In fact, the "US", to a person, excluding the Native Americans, is an immigrant nation.  

Here are some historical incongruouss facts about the  right wing American assumptions concerning immigration. 

Largely, right wingers like Ted Cruz aka "Cruz to loose", the Republican Senator from Texas and presidential "wanna-be", think immigrants pose a threat to our nation's security and the economy.  "Cruz to loose" and his "think a-likers" are absolutely wrong minded! In fact, the American military employs thousands of patriotic loyal men and women who are either immigrants or first generation immigrants. They are protecting our nation in war and peace. Seconly, immigrants contribute to the growth of our nation's economy, rather than take from it. In fact, immigrants pay taxes, obey the laws, consume goods and work hard at jobs many Americans don't particularly care to do for ourselves.

American history has plentyof examples of wrong minded immigrantion thinking.

1.  Let's begin with the French troops who assisted General George Washington and assisted Americans to win the Revolutionary War!

2.  During America's industrial expansion, when manufacturing companies were thriving, it was immigrants from Ireland and French Canada who helped to keep badly needed mills thriving, while the bosses made fortunes. Often, the immigrant workers, who provided the labor, were required to live in squalor and frequently died of infectious diseases. 

3.  President Eisenhower's "wetback" policy, to respond to a growing Mexican immigration problem, was proven to be a disasterous failure. In fact, operation "Wetback", now a deragatory term, was an immigration law enforcement initiative created by the Immigration and Naturalization Service diirector Joseph Swing. The program was implemented in May 1954 by U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell, and utilized special tactics to deal with illegal border crossing and illegal residence in the United States by Mexicans. The program became a contentious issue in Mexico-United States relations. After implementation, Operation Wetback gave rise to arrests and deportations by the U.S. Border Patrol characterized by physical abuse and civil rights violations, and even deportations of hundreds of U. S. citizens unable to convince border agents of their status.  Reports about the deportation process during Operation Wetback described a humanitarian disaster, especially in one incident when 88 deportees died as a result of inhumane conditions in extreme heat.

4.  President Roosevelt's administration prevented the immigration of many Jewish immigrant refugees from Europe, prior to World War II.  Reporting in the Holocaust Encylopedia, establishing a haven in the United States for German Jewish refugees in the 1930s,was extremely difficult for a variety of reasons. Among these were general questions regarding immigration to the United States. The new quota system of the 1924 US Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) imposed severe restrictions on immigration based on nationality. Moreover, in 1930, Roosevelt's predecessor, President Herbert Hoover, announced that, given acute unemployment during the Depression, US immigration authorities would henceforth interpret a 1917 ban on immigration of persons “likely to become a public charge” to include persons who were otherwise able to work, but in the conditions of the Depression were unlikely to find a job. As it turned out, the Jewish immigrants who were turned away during the 1930s, certainly could've been valuable citizens by providing badly needed labor during the World War's defense industrial workforce.  

5.  When it came to providing leadership about immigration reform, it was the conservative Republican icon of the past, for the right wingers, President Ronald Reagan, who gave thousands of alien people a path to citizenship. In the Immigration and Control Act of 1986, President Reagan, in reality, created a GOP supportive voting block among Hispanics when he promoted this "amnesty" legislation. At the time, the Immigration and Naturalization Service estimated that about four million illegal immigrants would apply for legal status through the act and that roughly half of them would be eligible.

Now, right wingers like "Cruz to loose" and think a-likers are saying the US should stop desperate Syrian refugees from immigration into the United States, because one of the killers who attaked Paris on Novembr 13, may have had a Syrian passport? 

"There you go again" as President Reagon once said. This incongruous thinking proved to be wrong minded in the past. Consequently, there's every reason to believe blocking immigration reform is, likewise, wrong for our nation's future.  

America is an immigrant nation and Senator Ted Cruz,, who was born in Canada, knows he's wrong to oppose Syrian immigrants from legally entering the US.