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Kelly Ayotte wants to steal my money, and yours as well - unless you are about to retire.
According to the Concord Monitor,
Ayotte said she recognizes the need to reform entitlement programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Though she would not change benefits for those about to retire, she said she would consider changing the eligibility age or instituting means testing for those still working.
http://findarticles.com/p/news...
Like many of Kelly's positions, she is a little squishy, in that she does not define "about to retire". But take someone like me. I have been paying into the Social Security system for about 40 years. I am 56, so I probably will keep working for a few more years - especially if Ayotte has her way and raises the eligibility age. So why does Kelly Ayotte want to steal the money I have been paying into the system for decades?
This is an out and out assault on the middle class. The wealthiest Americans, whose tax cuts she wants to protect, won't miss the check each month. It is middle class Americans, who worked hard and quietly built nest eggs in retirement and other funds to go along with their social security savings, who will suffer when Kelly Ayotte steals our social security savings.
Hmmm, savings stolen in an elaborate scheme, that reminds me of something, what is it that I am thinking of? Oh, well, it will come back to me.
But I digress.
The point is, Republicans like Ayotte want to steal our social security money, while at the same time advocating for tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans. It is out and out class warfare on the middle class.
I can just see the means testing now. After stopping at the Department of Citizenship, where you have to prove grandma was not an illegal alien, you go to the Department of Means Testing, to argue over whether you are poor enough to collect your money. What if you were a hardworking middle class person who did not save a lot of money because you put three or four children through college and grad school, and got hit with medical bills that your health insurance didn't cover? Will you be denied social security because you earned too much over your life? Or what if you own a house, and just paid off your 30 year mortgage? Will Kelly Ayotte force you to sell your house and spend all the proceeeds on living expenses before you can qualify for getting your money our of social security?
That is the prospect that awaits us if Kelly Ayotte gets her way, because when Republicans talk about means testing for social security, they are talking about limiting it to people who are indigent. So maybe they won't have to raise the age for eligibility - people will have to keep working to pay the bills, because I also suspect that pittance that the Republicans will grudgingly pay out won't cover much.