Ratigan for Congress: Protecting & Strengthening Social Security [hXDvrO7V2tg]
Dylan Ratigan says it's time not just to protect Social Security, but strengthen it for the future. (Video: Mountain Lake PBS) FOR MORE: Visit www.dylanratigan.com Follow Dylan on Twitter: Join the campaign on Facebook: TRANSCRIPT QUESTION: My name is Laura Matthews and I live here in the city of Plattsburgh. I am concerned that Social Security is going to become the next big target of the Republican party. They even call it an "entitlement," a word which has come to have this negative connotation, as if somehow we're getting something that is a gift, not something that we worked for our entire lives. So, I want to know how you think we can strengthen Social Security, and I want to know if you support removing the cap on Social Security contributions, so that everyone pays the same percentage no matter whether they make a million dollars a year or ten thousand dollars a year. And I also want to know what you're going to do if the Democratic leadership in Congress, say that you do support some of these measures, if the Democratic leadership in Congress says uh-uh, you can't vote that way. RATIGAN: Politicians going back certainly to Governor Rockefeller here, Bill Clinton was a great practitioner of it, it's almost impossible for a politician to fight the desire to take money from the future to give it away to somebody that's a constituent today. And Social Security, from an accounting perspective, has become a piggy bank for politicians to deal out, whether it's tax cuts or other benefits, effectively, from future payment. It's openly corrupt, it's openly theft. It's not even politics. So, yeah, you raise the cap. Yes, you protect it 100%. Yes, you increase the benefits. Yes, Medicare for all. Yes, you have to work towards a government that works for human beings as opposed to at their expense. The Democratic party controlled all three houses -- the Presidency, the House and the Senate and had health care on the table, and they couldn't even put up a public option. That is why I know our government is so broken, and that is why I know it needs the reform to ensure that the benefits for Social Security and everything else not only remain intact, but are advanced.