MARK WARNER
Virginia’s Senator Mark Warner is talking openly about cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid! APV has been aggressive in communicating our unequivocal opposition to radical conservative attempts to intentionally wreck the most successful and popular government programs in American history. We are alarmed and deeply disappointed that Sen. Warner would be a party to such talk. Social Security is solvent today and for decades to come, and its long-term outlook can be easily secured through a marginal raise to the Wage Cap, which would affect only the wealthiest recipients. I urge you to contact your Senators, and if you live in Virginia, to contact Sen. Warner. Tell them not to negotiate away our hard-earned retirement system.
The same conservative radicals who held the American people and our economy hostage in October when they closed the government and threatened our nation’s credit rating with a pointless and dangerous default, have wanted to privatize or eliminate Social Security for a long time. It is time for Progressives to communicate to our lawmakers that this will not stand and that those who aid in such a scheme will have crossed a red line and will not only lose our support but gain our enmity. “Compromising” on how much of this fundamental, bedrock part of the liberal democratic platform to cut, is like negotiating over how much of the Lincoln Memorial we should jack hammer into gravel.
Such a betrayal would not be forgotten or forgiven. Far from ‘improving’ the economy, such cuts would further poison our recovery and hurt the majority of Americans. If this is not sufficient cause for Senator Warner and the other Democrats to reconsider a grand “compromise”, they might speculate on the more immediate, massive and long-lasting damage it will certainly cause their own political careers, and their colleagues’.
Most Democrats will be deeply demoralized. Many will stop donating or volunteering or otherwise helping any politician or Party who engages in this shameful undertaking. Countless others, I suspect, will simply not vote. Capitulation on Social Security will effectively destroy the Democratic brand and their losses at the polls will be predictable and massive. Many moderate to progressive voters may very well actively support alternatives –as a point of principle–even if doing this results in the election of potentially worse candidates.
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid should not be “on the table”, and if they are, then the political careers of those who would enable the likes of Ted Cruz and the Heritage Foundation must be as well.
Scott Price
President, Alliance for Progressive Values
9 Democrats who are selling out on Social Security cuts
Contact Info for Senator Warner is here.
Alliance for a Progressive Virginia 