Huge tax increase for 50+ workers from AARP.

[Booster]

I received the following email from a friend today. Has anybody heard anything about the following?

Subject: Huge Tax Increase on 50+ Workers!

AARP Tells Congress to Dump Huge Tax Increase on 50+ Workers!

It sounds incredible, but it's true.

AARP wants workers over the age of 50 to shoulder huge new tax
increases as their solution to the Social Security Crisis.

If you are over 50, and you are still working, like 3.6 million other
workers in America, AARP has you in their tax-and-run crosshairs.

A tax increase of $543 billion over 10 years.

At the end of the tax hike, AARP's plan doesn't even cover one-half of
the projected Social Security funding shortfall.

But AARP needs to support their big-government allies in Washington.

Send your strong protest today to your elected officials and tell them
AARP Does Not Speak For Me.

Click Here http://yourmemberbenefits.com/dbm83/l.php?6640&2292314 to
tell your elected officials that AARP Does Not Speak for Me!
If you don't speak out, AARP will continue to claim they speak for all
Americans over the age of 50.

[evlbstrd]

1. This looks like a smear.

An attempt to scare people into Social Security "reform."

[JHB]

2. Haven't heard it before, but it smells of a hit-and-run smear on AARP

Betcha the facts don't support the claim.

[JHB]

7. Owners of this URL:

http://www.aarpdoesnotspeakforme.com/

I'm smellin' astroturf...

Domain name: aarpdoesnotspeakforme.com

Registrant:
Tom Moore (MZBEW) [e-mail]
The Seniors Coalition
4401 Fair Lakes Court Suite 210
Fairfax, VA 22033
United States
Phone: [phone]

Administrative Contact:
Tom Moore (MZBEW) [e-mail]
The Seniors Coalition
4401 Fair Lakes Court Suite 210
Fairfax, VA 22033
United States
Phone: [phone]

Technical Contact:
Tom Moore (MZBEW) [e-mail]
The Seniors Coalition
4401 Fair Lakes Court Suite 210
Fairfax, VA 22033
United States
Phone: [phone]

Billing Contact:
Tom Moore (MZBEW) [e-mail]
The Seniors Coalition
4401 Fair Lakes Court Suite 210
Fairfax, VA 22033
United States
Phone: [phone]

Record last updated on 2005-07-23 00:00:00
Record created on 2005-07-22 00:00:00
Record expires on 2007-07-22 00:00:00

Domain servers in listed order:
ns1.abac.com 216.55.128.4
ns2.abac.com

[Missy M]

3. How is it possible to tax people based on their age....

it sounds ridiculous. I doubt if it is even legal. Is this true or just some rumor going around?

[Booster]

6. I don't know and haven't really had a chance to research it, but

I would imagine it has something to do with SS reform. I'll try and check it out later today.

[wishlist]

4. AARP just wants to raise the ceiling of earnings subject to SS taxes

This email is very dishonest by failing to inform readers that most workers will not have their taxes increased under AARP's suggestion, only those making over the ceiling which is currently about $98,000. Under current law, high earners who earn more than the ceiling are not taxed on the amount they earn over the ceiling. Increasing the ceiling has been suggested by many people (even Repub Sen. Lindsay Graham) as possible the easiest way to make the program solvent in the long term.

Bush's wealthy supporters don't like the idea of raising the ceiling since it does raise their SS taxes. Once again though they are trying to fool average Americans into thinking everyone including lower income folks will be affected.

[Missy M]

8. I'm all for that. This should have been done long ago, why not ....

eliminate the ceiling altogether. Also, stop the nonsense about eliminating the estate tax.

[warrens]

5. Yeah, right, they're gonna tax their entire member base

I think I see where this is coming from. They're supporting the estate tax and raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans. The wealthiest Americans are in their 50s and early 60s. Wealthiest WORKING Americans, that is.

[BiggJawn]

9. Capitalizing on AARP getting bait and switched on Medicare...

...Isn't somebody?

Sounds like that bullshit "send this to everyone in your company 5 times and Bill Gats will give you a thousand dollars!" stuff that goes around.

Or "Senate Bill 602P"

Oh......"Your member benefits" is an anti-AARP web site....

Here's a selection of what they preach:

1988: AARP strongly supported the Medicare Catastrophic Health Care Act despite widespread opposition by seniors across America.

1994: AARP helps draft and strongly supports the ill-fated Hillary Clinton Socialized Medicine Plan -- despite widespread opposition from its own members.

2005: AARP proposes massive tax increases for many of its own members as a part of its Social Security Reform Plan

2005: AARP strongly supports the Dorgan Drug Importation Bill that will allow unsafe imported drugs into the U.S. from countries like Slovakia, Malta, Greece, and Latvia despite strong opposition from AARP members.


"Unssafe imported drugs"...Oh, do you suppose thaey're talking about that diabetes medication I was on that was made by an Eli Lilly subsiderary in JAPAN?

OH! this is lovely....

" AARP claims that raising the tax rate, increasing the tax cap from $90,000 to $140,000 -- often called "Busting the Cap" so working seniors pay Social Security taxes on more of the income they earn, is what you want."

I'm sorry, but I don't KNOW any "Working Seniors" who make $90,000, much less $140,000...I'm a poor, upper-lower-class Liberal. I don't rub elbows with the Yacht Club Set...Or are you trying to tell me that WalMart greeters get paid THAT well?

[Coexist]

10. I wasn't aware the AARP had the power to tax citizens of this country...

imagine that.

[lpbk2713]

11. Note that at the bottom of the web page on your link .......

... that it says the web page is supported by The Seniors Coalition.


The Seniors Coalition, in turn, is supported by the (who'da guessed it?) Republican Party.


Link: http://www.stealthpacs.org/profile.cfm?org_id=39


This could be payback. It seems the AARP outed the Seniors Coalition for a kickback they received of over 2 million bucks from the pharmaceutical industry.


From the link:

Issues of concern involving the pharmaceutical industry are prominent in the Seniors Coalition's electioneering communications. The front page of the Seniors Coalition's "Beuprez" mailing contained a highlighted sidebar that claimed "Bob Beuprez supports the House-passed Prescription Drug Plan" and then enumerated facets of the bill in a favorable light. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the trade association of the brand name prescription drug industry, gave the Seniors Coalition nearly $2.1 million in 2000, AARP Bulletin reported. The group reported receiving nearly $6 million from a single person or organization in 2002.

[starroute]

15. Here's the AARP article on the Seniors Coalition

One of the three organizations referred to in the article, United Seniors/USA Next, got a lot of negative publicity last winter -- both for its Jack Abramoff connection and for its anti-gay/anti-AARP ad. (If you don't remember that little gem, see http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/21/164929/948) It looks like the Seniors Coalition may have taken up the baton.

http://www.aarp.org/bulletin/consumer/a2003-06-30-pullingstrings.html

Drug Industry Finances Nonprofit Groups That Claim to Speak for Older Americans
By Bill Hogan
February 2003

United Seniors Association, based in Fairfax, Va., calls itself an "influential and effective" advocacy organization for older Americans. The Seniors Coalition, based in Springfield, Va., describes itself as an "advocacy organization that represents the interests and concerns of America's senior citizens." The 60 Plus Association, based in Arlington, Va., describes itself as "an advocacy group with a free enterprise, less government, less taxes approach to seniors issues."

<snip>

For starters, all three organizations claim to be nonpartisan, though they support—almost without exception—the campaigns and causes of one political party. All three organizations were formed by, or with help from, direct mail entrepreneur Richard Viguerie, and two have been operated in recent years by former officers or employees of Viguerie's companies. All three organizations have been criticized over the years for questionable fundraising practices, and, recently, the Social Security Administration ordered one of them to halt what it determined to be misleading mailings.

All three organizations claim to speak for millions of older Americans, although as recently as 2001 none of the three listed any revenue from membership dues on their tax returns. Moreover, an investigation by the AARP Bulletin shows that virtually all of their largest contributions in recent years have come from the same source—the nation's pharmaceutical industry.

<snip>

The Seniors Coalition was formed in 1990 by Viguerie and Dan C. Alexander, a Mobile, Ala., school board official who had been convicted of extorting kickbacks on school construction projects and later served four years of a 12-year prison term. For some of the time Alexander was in prison, he and his wife drew $23,000 a month in "consulting" fees from the Seniors Coalition while their teenage daughter served as its president.

Viguerie has been one of the leading scumbags on the right for 40 years or more, and everything that comes from his hands is tainted.

[Coastie for Truth]

12. Personal vanity web site -- give it about as much credibility

as my personal vanity web site, - don't let the picture fool you - that's my Viet Nam era picture when I was thinner, younger, healthier, and better looking.

[JHB]

13. The site points you to a subset of The Seniors Coalition...

From the Annenberg Public Policy Center:
http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/ISSUEADS/organizations/the_seniors_coalition.htm

The Seniors Coalition (TSC)

Description
The Seniors Coalition (TSC) is a conservative senior's group that has nearly four million members (The National Journal, January 5, 2002). Public Citizen, a Washington-based public interest organization, has reported that the Seniors Coalition is largely funded by PhRMA (The Times Union , April 27, 2003).
---------

In the past they've pushed "private accounts" (I guess that was before "private" was sovietized to "personal"), they're against the "death tax", etc., all buried under a few reasonable-sounding agenda points as a smokescreen (or would a more accurate term be "elephant dung odor eaters"?).

MMmmmmmm, feel that astroturn between your toes....

[madrchsod]

14. bullshit from a bullshit site

is this the republican stoogies website?

[Rainscents]

17. YES!

[mtnester]

16. Swifboat attempt to bring AARP back into the fold

eom