Submitted by Illinoisnoki1 on Wed, 06/09/2010 - 10:53

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Obama has filled his new 'debt commission' with Wall Street insiders determined to gut Social Security.

Social Security is solvent and pays for itself.

Matthew Skomarovsky - Alternet

       A decade of wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, and the fallout from Wall Street's housing bubble have almost tripled U.S. public debt since 2001, from $5 trillion to $14 trillion. Big, scary numbers like this, along with carefully timed downgrade warnings from Wall Street's obedient rating agencies and continuing worries about the financial collapse of Greece, Portugal and other nations have changed the political climate in Washington, breathing new life into decades-old schemes to slash Social Security and Medicare entitlements.

And defending Social Security does indeed sound like yesterday's issue — a fight the people won when they defeated Bush's attempt to privatize the system in 2005. Our Social Security program is currently solvent through 2037, while millions of Americans are unemployed, millions more are losing their homes, and still millions more are struggling to meet soaring health insurance costs after watching their retirement accounts dwindle in the financial collapse.

Would the entitlement wolves -- primarily Wall Street executives who stand to reap billions from Social Security privatization -- really have the gall to go after Social Security now? In a word, yes.

Global deficit jitters and U.S. political uncertainties associated with Scott Brown's surprise Senate victory in Massachusetts have helped fuel the fire at propaganda campaigns like IOUSA and the Wall Street tycoon-funded Fiscal Times. The White House is now either on the budgetary defensive, or exploiting the moment to exact unpopular entitlement cuts it was already preparing to make. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE