Monthly Email Update
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from all of us at 60 Plus! Best wishes to you and your family for a wonderful 2011. We thank you for being a part of our successes this year and look forward to, with you, accomplishing even more in the new year.
In this issue:
- November 2nd Tsunami Prediction by 60 Plus Proves Amazingly Accurate
- Spending Revolt Bus Tour Shakes Congress to its Core
- So-Called Deficit Hawks Falsely Scapegoat Social Security in Budget Mess
- Seniors Rightfully Angry as Pro-Death Doctor Tapped by Obama
- AARP Employees Pay the Price for Organization’s Incompetence
- 60 Plus Supports GOP Resolution to Slash Spending Back to 2008 Levels
November 2nd Tsunami Prediction by 60 Plus Proves Amazingly Accurate
While local weathermen often have trouble predicting the outlook for the next day or two, the 60 Plus Association forecasted quite confidently more than a year ago that Election Day 2010 would be quite stormy for members of Congress who supported Obama’s anti-senior healthcare legislation.
The prediction proved perfectly accurate, with over 60 Democrats of the House being swept out of office in large part due to their anti-senior vote in favor of Obamacare that cut more than $500 billion from Medicare.
“60 Plus isn’t just the name of a conservative seniors advocacy group,” said its Chairman Jim Martin, “it is forever the answer to the question ‘how many Congressmen did angry seniors send to an early retirement because of their reckless spending and disregard for America’s elderly?'” In fact there were 63 Democrats who lost.
As far back in August of 2009, Martin warned members of Congress and the Obama Administration that if they moved forward with their plans to slash Medicare in order to fund a government managed healthcare plan, there would be a heavy price to pay at the ballot box in 2010, predicting at least 60 House members would be tossed out of office.
The “senior tsunami” finally came ashore and as Martin predicted, more than 60 members of Congress felt the wrath of the ‘senior tsunami’ and were provided a one-way ticket home from Washington, courtesy of America’s seniors.
60 Plus was not a passive presence in the tremendous political upheaval, spending nearly $15 million on voter education TV ads, mail and phones in targeted Congressional districts, and this effort proved to be the difference on November 2nd.
“Let this be a warning to politicians who treat seniors as a welcome mat and vote to destroy freedom and while mortgaging America’s future,” said Martin. “Seniors will no longer be the whipping boy of this administration, and we will continue to push back against this hostile agenda and won’t rest until Obamacare is dead and buried.”
Spending Revolt Bus Tour Shakes Congress to its Core
The 60 Plus Association is proud to have partnered with SpendingRevolt.com in the final weeks of this election season, rousing crowds with rallies in over a dozen states as part of the SpendingRevolt.com bus tour.
Landing in the cities and districts of some of the nation’s most-watched Congressional battles, the SpendingRevolt.com bus tour rallied troops in over 25 winning races, nearly half the total gains made by the GOP November 2nd.
The message was simple, and was taken to heart by voters aghast at the unstoppable spending spree headed by Congress; America is bankrupt, and you are heading us down a path of ruin.
As shown quite starkly and disturbingly on the SpendingRevolt.com federal spending counter displayed on their web page, politicians’ appetite to spend other peoples’ money knows no limits.
60 Plus Chairman Jim Martin rode the bus through seven key battleground states where the GOP made significant gains, and was a major part of the rallies and media events that drove voters to the polls in record numbers for an off-year election.
“Congressional spending was clearly one of the major issues of this campaign,” said 60 Plus Chairman Jim Martin. “The American spirit to fight and scrap for the future of this country is alive and well. Whether in St. Petersburg, Florida; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; or Indianapolis, Indiana, I saw real patriots come greet us and send the message that regardless of what the politicians do, our country is in good hands so long as the people make their voice heard at the ballot box.”
So-Called Deficit Hawks Falsely Scapegoat Social Security in Budget Mess
Just days after Democrats felt the wrath of seniors at the ballot box and were turned out of office in record numbers, several members of President Obama’s ironically named “Deficit Commission” poked their finger in the eye of seniors yet again.
Releasing recommendations on how to scale back the mammoth debt that D. C. politicians have rung up over the decades, Commission member Democrat Senator Kent Conrad took to ABC’s “This Week” program to lobby on behalf of cutting Social Security benefits as a means to save the nation some money.
Said Conrad, “It is absolutely imperative we take [deficit reduction] on for the country’s sake. And are we going to have to make changes to Social Security? Certainly we are. Social Security is going to go cash negative in five years. It’s going to go broke in 2037.” What a joke. Cash Negative? It was cash positive for the last 74 years but big spenders like Senator Conrad stole from the Social Security Trust Fund. And now the chickens are coming home to roost.
“In 1969, Congress, prodded by President Lyndon B. Johnson, decided to intermingle social security payroll taxes collected by the government with general revenues from the Treasury. Social Security has produced massive surpluses over the decades to the tune of billions of dollars, only to be used as a slush fund by politicians, who masked the true size of our annual deficits to appear smaller than they actually were.
“This is embezzlement, pure and simple. For decades Washington politicians have used the rent money to pay for the groceries, and now the rent is due and they are refusing to pay. It is not the fault of Social Security that the account is empty, it is the fault of the very politicians who are addicted to spending and now want to cut seniors’ benefits even further to cover their own hide.”
Conrad’s recommendation comes just one month after the Obama Administration announced that yet again there will be no cost of living adjustment (COLA) in Social Security benefits in the coming year, hurting seniors even further.
“They truly think seniors are stupid, that they can steal us blind then have the gall to act as if they are doing us a favor by pretending to be fiscally responsible. But seniors see exactly what is going on, and we will raise hell if they try to fix our nation’s budget mess once again on the backs of our nation’s elderly.”
Seniors Rightfully Angry as Pro-Death Doctor Tapped by Obama
Do seniors have a duty to die when they are sick? Amazingly, that seems to be the viewpoint of Donald Berwick, President Obama’s recess appointment to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a leading government agency directing Medicare policy.
60 Plus Spokesman, Pat Boone, called Berwick the “kiss of death” to seniors for his support of the position that society would be better of withholding care for older Americans who have the misfortune to be significantly ill in their later years.
Said Berwick in a 1993 speech which defines his position to this day, “only a minority of patients, families and clinicians support prolonged use of life-sustaining procedures and dramatic interventions in the terminal states of illness…”
“Terminal” of course is a very flexible term, depending on who is doing the defining, and could vary wildly depending on whether uttered by a senior’s doctor or a government bureaucrat tasked with the responsibility of cutting health care costs.
Berwick is a known fan of the British health care system, which outright denies coverage to the elderly when government accountants consider care too costly. Critics liken this policy afforded British bureaucrats an extension of the privilege extended to the fictitious British agent James Bond; a license to kill. And now Obama is looking to import this dreaded policy via his appointment of Berwick.
60 Plus Chairman Jim Martin questioned the appointment, calling Berwick a “one man death panel,” and likens the admitted communist Berwick to former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm, who has the dubious distinction of telling seniors they had a “duty to die and get out of the way.”
Said Martin, “This is absolutely chilling. Seniors are rightfully afraid of this man. Once again we see the true colors of an Administration that is looking to socialize medicine not on the backs of seniors, but on their caskets.”
AARP Employees Pay the Price for Organization’s Incompetence
AARP spent the better part of the last two years telling Americans that we needed Obamacare to make our health care costs go down. Ironically, they couldn’t even keep this promise to their own employees.
News outlets recently reported that in order to avoid paying the added taxes on premium health care policies, the AARP will have to charge its individual employees MORE to cover their health insurance.
“Either one of two things happened here,” said 60 Plus Chairman Jim Martin. “AARP didn’t have the common sense to see that Obamacare would impact its very own employees, or it didn’t care. This is yet another devastating hit to their credibility as a watchdog for seniors and an authority on healthcare.”
Other Americans are sure to feel the pinch as the mammoth Obamacare legislation starts to work its way across the healthcare landscape and unleash toxic consequences on the nation’s healthcare system. This is yet another reason why 60 Plus and its millions of supporters are demanding its repeal. Now.
60 Plus Supports GOP Resolution to Slash Spending Back to 2008 Levels
Many in Congress have long promised to cut spending, and it is past time for them to make good on that promise. In the recently completed session of Congress, a vehicle to accomplish the promised spending cuts came in the form of H.J. Res. 96 (House Joint Resolution).
Unfortunately, Congress neglected to move this legislation forward, but we have no doubt the same resolution will be filed in the next Congress this January sending a strong message that our federal representatives are SERIOUS about the bankrupt status of our nation by returning all non-defense related discretionary spending to levels of 2008 fiscal year.
By law, Congress cannot make changes to entitlement spending or debt obligations without significant effort and legal challenges, but discretionary spending is on the table with every budget, and led by Republican Study Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Price (GA), the GOP is prepared to take a cleaver to the spending spree that began when Obama came to office.
H.J. Res. 96 had over 70 co-sponsors in Congress, along with the backing of dozens of conservative groups such as 60 Plus, Citizens Against Government Waste, Americans for Prosperity, and many others.
We’ll let you know when this resolution is filed once again in the new session. Until then, please call your Congressman at 202-224-3121 and tell him or her to take a principled stand against reckless spending and support in concept another H.J. Res. 96.
