Do you agree or disagree with the woman who wrote this letter? (details inside)

•slow clap•

Another slow clap. Picking up speed and intensity.

I agree to a point. My mom worked a lot but with cancer the treatment surely exceeds her portion. being real.

I Agree Whole Heartedly

If SS benefits are not entitlements, what are they? The Lady, by force of law, was compelled to pay into the system for others, now others are forced to pay for her sake. She thinks that she and others are entitled to it. If that is not an entitlement, what is?

I totally agree with the letter writer (not with @Josie)!

Standing ovation.

She’s definitely pissed and amazingly coherent in expressing herself. I hope her letter gets a huge circulation on the internet! It deserves it.

@josie, as she said, she paid in for herself as each person does. And, it is not that the system did not work it is that it was raided to pay for other parts of the gov (probably wars and congressional retirement) that caused the problems, not the payout to those who put in.

@josie but, maybe you are right. Maybe it is an entitlement. She, and you, and me, have put something into it and should be entitled to get something out of it. It is not as though we are asking for something for nothing, which, I get the feeling you are implying.

Thanks for sharing her letter. Yes, she’s pissed. Yes, she is absolutely right to be angry. Changing demographics, and aging population do factor into the future problem with handling baby boomers as they retire. But that can be dealt with without compromising the system, something Simpson and his ilk are determined to do.

@josie That’s how all insurance and retirement funds work. How come you don’t label then all a Ponzi scheme?

Source

Alan Simpson has spent half a century in government service, including three terms as a senator representing Wyoming in the U.S. Congress. In 2010, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles were appointed co-chairs of President Barack Obama’s National Commission on

Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, tasked with coming up with a plan to “bring down the federal budget deficit to 3% of gross domestic product by 2015, compared with nearly 10% today, and to propose ways to hold down the surging costs of government programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.”

The commission’s proposal for eliminating the nation’s $13.8 trillion debt, which included components such as increasing taxes and gradually raising the retirement age for Social Security to 69 years, prompted an “unprecedented amount of flak” from opponents, to which Simpson responded by referring to modern Americans as the “greediest generation” (although he tempered his remarks by saying he felt America had more “patriots than selfish people”):
“I’ve never had any nastier mail or [been in a] more difficult position in my life,” said the 79-year-old Simpson. “Just vicious. People I’ve known, relatives [saying], ”‘You son of a bitch. How could you do this?’”

Not surprisingly, many of the debt commission’s draft proposals to cut the debt by nearly $4 trillion by 2020 — from raising the retirement age to 69 by 2075 to bringing in $1 trillion more in tax revenue — have won strong opposition from liberals and conservatives alike.

But Simpson said that while every interest group that testified before his committee agreed that the mounting federal debt is a national tragedy, they would then talk about why government funding to their area of interest shouldn’t be touched.

“We had the greatest generation — I think this is the greediest generation,” he said.

“I really believe that there are more patriots in America than selfish, selfish people,” he said.

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/simpson.asp#86EULjZwpx4BEkmY.99

I am having trouble with my home computer so I could not write this from home, but I was going to say (and am saying now) how do you know this letter is real? It sounds like one of those rants which is not really from where they say it is. Politicians get hundreds or thousands of letters. That one particular letter makes it to the media seems suspicious. I don’t doubt that letter writers use nasty language, but that the language is both nasty and perfectly written is also suspicious (to me, but maybe I’m just a cynic, which I definitely am).

@jca I don’t know, while I have found that short, two or three sentence letters that directly address my concerns are much more effective in the newspaper, I go into more longer, more detailed emails with congressmen, etc.

But that doesn’t stop me from getting out of my system with long, logical and at times downright nasty diatribes then go back and re-write, toning it down to a more civilized level or appropriate length before sending. It is certainly not unusual for me to use the term “A$$h@le” throughout and then go back and use the “find and replace” feature and change it to the proper honorific.

@rojo: Yes, but in this case, the wording and “tone” seem like so many other inflammatory diatribes that we read on the web, about people who are really pissed and go on these rants.

@bkcunningham Actually, the recession Bush gave us drove the deficit into the stratosphere and it’s already dropping faster now than it ever has in history. But con men will never let that stand in their way when there is the possibility of conning us into giving them our retirement benefits, because we all know how hard it is to get buy on a billion dollars and change. Our poor wealthy people need our help. And we can get by on a few meals a week to give it to them.

There is no other way of slicing it. What Simpson said is utterly despicable. The man’s greed knows no bounds.