Tell Congress: No deal cutting Social Security, Medicare

Cross posted from AFL-CIO Now.

If you’ve been following the news on the various proposals to reduce national spending as part of a deal to raise the national debt ceiling, you’ll have heard politicians from both parties bandy about phrases like “tough choices” and “shared sacrifice” and “taking on sacred cows.”

But as AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said: “So far, the only sacred cows being gored by budget proposals coming out of Washington are working people, the middle class, seniors and the poor.”

TAKE A STAND! Click here to tell Congress and the White House: “No deal that cuts Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. No deal that destroys more jobs while making the rich richer.”

Just what do these so-called “grand bargains” do?  Not much for working families, that’s for sure. Take a look at the “Gang of Six” proposal:

• It cuts Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
• It chokes job-creating public investments.
• It slashes education for disadvantages students.
• It whacks workers with taxes on our heath care benefits and tax credits.
• And it kills American jobs — by switching to a “territorial taxation system” that gives corporations incentives to ship jobs overseas and shift profits to offshore tax havens.

Now there are reports that President  Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) are discussing a deal that could cut roughly $3 trillion in spending now — including cuts to vital programs that protect working families — in exchange for vague promises to reform the tax code next year.

We’ve got to tell Congress and the White House — click here — to focus on creating jobs, not protecting tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy while cutting Social Security, Medicare and programs vital to the most vulnerable of Americans.

“We need to keep asking our leaders: ‘Who got us into this mess?’ says Trumka. “It wasn’t working people.  The people who got us into this mess are getting off scot-free.”