Ways & Means Chair Describes Plans to Cut Social Security

House Ways & Means chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) describes planned cuts Social Security by raising the retirement age to 70--a 21% benefit cut--implementing means testing to cut additional benefits, and using the chained CPI to further reduce benefits.

You know they want the retirement age at 70 but do you know how hard it is even for a 50 something to get a job? They of course have no plans to make rules when it comes to the job system making work more likely for older people. Oh they'll never remove the cap where the very rich don't even pay into the system. A 21 percent cut means you would see millions of homeless disabled people in the streets. I would be homeless if they cut it by that much. Does anyone wonder why I hate the Republican party and left churches that worshipped at the altar of these guys? Both parties suck but one is sucking worse in my book lately.

 I have told people avoid going on disability if you can do it. There was this one guy I knew who was applying and I didn't think he was disabled at all, and they'd laugh him out of the disability office. I said to him, "Why do you want to go on disability? It means forever poverty. It means you will be poorer then dirt. Our checks are nearly worthless now because they starting cutting cost of living about 10 years ago, and we do not get those increases according to inflation like we used to."  I believe this is going to get worse. If you can work at all, keep your job if it pays more then minimum wage. In my case if I had kept working I would have died.  Everyone who becomes disabled dreams of becoming un-disabled, and even I had those hopes and dreams but the lungs got worse. When I was in my early 30s, I dreamed of getting my body back together.

The housebound times and rest make it impossible. I was in bed for 2 days just from daring to sit up too long from a church conference. It gets scary. I took my walks and just managed to get my sugar down with an insulin increase, but all I do is maintain the status quo, it seems I never can get things "better".  In America where they want happy endings to every problem, being disabled this long can bring a special sort of shame people want to unload on you. The fat thing adds a whole other dimension to it.

I woke up with dread this morning from my lungs getting tight just because the temperature dropped by 25 degrees. My lung medicine fixed this but COPD is a progressive disease. It reminded me of the years where I was always short of breathe and panicking every other second just because I could barely breath.  Sometimes I think these rich Republicans are a bunch of monsters, they make it like disabled people are all living high on the hog and always turn to us first to cut the disability checks. No most disabled people are at barely surviving standards of living.

If they do a 21 percent cut, and I can breath outside that week, I will go and sit in front of the local Republican Congressman's office with a protest sign. This guy is one of the silver spoons in the mouth types who hate the disabled and poor just as much. They'll vote in more money for war and more money to be handed to a plethora of foreign nations. They'll outsource more jobs and then allow full and rampant age and health discrimination so someone like my husband can't get a good working class or middle class job ever. So I don't think much of these guys not at all.

If Trump becomes president, the disabled are going to be in for it.