Are We Going to Let the Obscenely Rich Keep All the Money They've Stolen From Us?

Because cutting Social Security is doing just exactly that.

Digby:

Could there be a worse time to cut the already meager benefits that Social Security provides? Only a disaster capitalist would think otherwise.

When I see articles saying that while it's true that cutting Social Security won't affect the deficit or fix the global problem of health care costs, it still must be done in order to instill "confidence" or because it's politically clever to appease the deficit hawks by offering up cuts that don't kick in right away (and are therefore safe for those who are in office today) I want to scream. That cynical opportunism seems to be at the heart of the whole conversation, from Pete Peterson's crusade to Barack Obama's ludicrous belief that it's possible to take these political disagreements off the table for good if he can just make the right "deal."

Everybody's got a good reason for doing it but at the end of the day the only thing that really makes sense is that elites have created a bunch of rationales for their belief that it's just too expensive to have a large number of elderly in the population. After all, there are heirs to provide for.

The money is there. This argument is all about how we decide to allocate it and where it's going to be allocated. Right now, this is how we do it:

That's a choice, not an act of God.

See also Dean Baker.