Speakout 2/14

I would like to SpeakOut about Mike's editorial about the Social Security changes and Medicaid. For one, the best thing Missouri could do, rather than cutting out handicap benefits and wheelchairs and things that are needed by those in need is to cut out these people who have 6, 7, 8 kids and draw Medicaid for all of them. Instead of taking them to the doctor during normal hours, they go out and tie up the emergency room so that people who are really sick can't get through because they're too lazy to make a doctor's appointment. One or two kids, fine. After that, you're on your own. And on Social Security, I understand what he's saying about so many people drawing Supplemental Security Income (SSI). I worked all my life from the time I was 12 years old and up until two or three years ago. I've scrubbed floors and have done everything I could to raise my children. I am on disability now (not by choice), but if you start eliminating the SSI, then the people who worked all their lives should be able to start drawing it because we need it. But we're not going to get it. If you haven't worked any and are supposedly disabled, and are not like those of us who have worked and paid in and now cannot work for one reason or another, now draw our money. I know a guy who has drawn Social Security his whole life, since he was a teen-ager, because he messed up his back stealing cattle. Some of us have worked and aren't choosing to draw it, but have to draw it. They are knocking us out of our income all the way around.

The President has been pushing his Social Security plan lately and one of the things he says is that people who are 55 or older don't have to worry. Their benefits are locked in. But if his plan is so good, why would they have to worry? Shouldn't he just say, "I'm sorry, everybody 55 or over, my plan is not designed to begin that late in life, so you get left out. Sorry."

You people better wake up and smell the coffee. Bush wants to cut out Social Security and put it in private funds because he says Social Security is going to go broke. Why? Well, he says it's OK for the illegal immigrants to come over here and work the jobs that Americans won't work. They can work six months, go back home and we'll pay them Social Security. Let them draw their Social Security. Do I have to not have a brain and be a dummy to figure this out? If our Social Security is in bad shape, how can we afford to pay them our Social Security and why are we building a Social Security office in Mexico? Can someone find out? Bush is misleading people. There is nothing wrong with Social Security. He just wants to see his hands in it.

All this big problem about the Social Security crisis is George's supposedly trying to face, this should have never been allowed to happen. If this administration, as well as all the previous ones, had not stolen (and I emphasize 'stolen') the money from Social Security, we would have plenty of money for years to come. It would be interesting to know just how much was stolen. It was collected for Social Security and should not have been used for anything but Social Security.

It's a shame that kids nowadays want to steal and don't want to earn. My wallet was stolen in a gym by kids. I am offering an award for its return. Call me at 472-2073.