Pamela is a liar

Pamela, presumably a spokeswoman for the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (since she invites me to look at "their" website and refers to "We do not receive funding"), left a comment to yesterday's post. In that post, she claims that the NCPSSM is a grassroots organization that is funded by the dues of individual members and donations.

Here is the makeup of their income sources. If you take a look, so far for 2014, they have received $282,202 from Political Action Committees, and $1,800 from individuals. According to their website, the minimum donation for membership is $12. This means that, at most, there are 150 members in this group. That means that the 12 protesters that appeared at the even last week represented over 10% of the total membership of this "nationwide grassroots" organization.

More than 99% of this group's funding comes from PACs, not individuals.
 
In my opinion, this group is nothing more than a front to distribute campaign funding to Democrats from rich benefactors. In other words, Astroturf.

She then goes on to say that using the word "entitlement" when referring to Social Security and Medicare is some sort of incorrect attempt at insulting the people who receive those benefits. She is wrong, again. Here, let me Google that for you:

An entitlement is a government program guaranteeing access to some benefit, such as to welfare benefits or tax incentives, by members of a specific group and based on established rights or by legislation.

As far as Ryan being for cutting Social Security and Medicare, he is right. Those programs will either be cut in a controlled manner, or they will be cut when we run out of money. Either way, it is a mathematical certainty. Social Security, interest on the debt we have already incurred, Medicare, and Medicaid total more than we take in through taxes, and that is without paying for all of the other things that the government does: Military, Law Enforcement, the Courts, the Post Office, Welfare, Food Stamps, roads, and all of the other items.

The way out of this mess is not more taxes. Increasing the taxes of all Americans by a third (133% of last year) would still require that all government discretionary spending be cut in half. Spending has GOT to be cut across the board, even mandatory items like Social Security, along with the pet project of the right, the military.

Eliminating the Social Security cap would do nothing. Currently, 84% of all earnings (not earners) fall under the cap. Eliminating the cap would only increase tax revenue by a little more than 1%. Not nearly enough to make a difference.