'…a major destabilizing influence'
F, Scott Fitzgerald is famously said to have once remarked to his pal Ernest Hemingway, “The rich are different from you and me, Ernest,” to which Hemingway is said to have replied, “Yes, they have more money.” Fitzgerald had it right. Particularly these days, when the wealthiest people in the US are not millionaires, …
Continue reading “The Rich are Different — Richer than Us and Far Greedier”
In 2016, exit polls show that Donald Trump won the over-50 vote by a big margin. With voters over the age of 50 accounting for 45% of voters that year, Trump, according to a study by AARP was the choice of 55% of that demographic, compared to 44% who voted for Hillary Clinton. Trump’s …
Continue reading “Older Voters, especially Republicans, Need to Think Before They Vote”
Attacks on Social Security are coming thick and fast. It’s time for Americans of all ages who aren’t independently wealthy and don’t need to worry about a serious, career halting disability or surviving in old age to rally and fight back. The latest attack is the Trump Administration’s so-called “Eagle” plan, appropriately named for the …
Continue reading “As Republicans Face November Disaster, Efforts to Undermine Social Security Mount”
I was explaining to my 26-year-old son recently that while I’m continuing to work as a writer, because I waited until age 70 to begin collecting my Social Security benefits, I am now collecting almost $29,000 a year on top of what I earn doing my freelance journalism thing. He said, matter-of-factly, “Well, I …
Probably the most important single legacy of what happened in the period of the Great Depression and the New Deal was the establishment of Social Security, the federal program that today pays benefits to 63 million US elderly, disabled adults and dependent children left by a deceased bread-winner. That’s one-in-six of all people in this …
Continue reading “Social Security is the Key to Progressive Change in America”
Social Security, the retirement program established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Democrats in Congress in 1936 as a cornerstone of the New Deal programs that were put in place to help Americans struggling with the Great Depression, has been under attack by Republicans ever since it began. In the early 1980s, they finally …
Continue reading “Demand an End to the Taxation of Social Security Benefits”
In the surreal alternative reality world of the US Congress, there are many bills passed each year that on the surface may sound like good ideas — they even give them high-sounding names like the US PATRIOT ACT or Better Care and Reconciliation Act, that in fact are the opposite of what they claim to …