Public Opposes Cutting Social Security To Trim Deficit: New Poll (huffpost)

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/11/public-opposes-cutting-so_n_678374.html

Ryan Grim [e-mail]

Public Opposes Cutting Social Security To Trim Deficit: New Poll
First Posted: 08-11-10 10:38 AM | Updated: 08-11-10 10:38 AM


Social Security turns 75 this week and remains an intensely popular program with voters of all ages, who strongly oppose cutting it to reduce the deficit, according to a new survey paid for by AARP and conducted by GfK Roper.

The poll, which was provided exclusively to HuffPost, finds that 85 percent of adults oppose cutting Social Security to reduce the deficit; 72 percent "strongly oppose" doing so.

Numbers like that simply don't appear in surveys of almost any other national issue that is subject to debate.

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The strong support for the program isn't ideological but personal and visceral. Cutting Social Security would bring real pain, survey respondents said. Just shy of two-thirds say that their family would be hit hard if Social Security were cut. Eighty percent of Americans say that Social Security alleviates the financial burden of taking care of parents. Prior to the enactment of Social Security, the elderly consistently drained the savings of their children in their waning days or were shipped off to homes known as "poor houses" -- a phrase that survives today as a cliché disconnected from its original use.

complete story at link

Well, there you have it - support for Social Security is "personal and visceral".

BUT

Do the politicians even care what we want? We wanted a public option too, did that matter? What counts is what the corporate pockets want,and they want continued tax breaks for the wealthy and budgets balanced on the backs of the poor, hungry, elderly and ill.

Why would I have confidence in the same pols who fund education by defunding food stamps to look out for the people's interests when it comes to protecting Social Security? You know what is sick? They cut food stamps to gain the votes of those 2 idiots from Maine - Snowe and Collins. Does it matter that 1 out of 6 Maine households uses foodstamps? Good job looking out for your constituents, you heartless ("but they seem so reasonable") Conservative ghouls!

http://www.sunjournal.com/node/695677

More from Katrina vanden Heuvel
http://www.thenation.com/blog/153881/food-stamps-or-teachers

(Sorry for that digression. Still mad about the food stamps.)

We need to start letting them know NOW how "personal and visceral" people feel about them screwing around with Social Security benefits.