Wellstone Action: Rally to Oppose Bush SS Scam in NM, MT, AR, NE and FL!

[flpoljunkie]

Tonight during the State of the Union address to Congress and the American people, President Bush will announce his plan to dismantle the most successful poverty elimination program in American history.


He'll tell you Social Security is in crisis and that he's letting you invest your own money.

But here is what he will not tell you:

America's Social Security system will be solvent until 2053

His proposal will cause the average 20-year-old worker to lose $152,000 in retirement benefits

Privatizing social security really means billions of dollars in the pockets of Wall Street tycoons

The next 72 hours of the fight to protect Social Security are critical!


Tomorrow President Bush will launch a two day, five-state tour, to promote his plan with stops in North Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, Arkansas and Florida. Rallies will be held at each of the President's stops to protest this reckless plan.


Please take an hour out of your day to attend the rally listed below and stand up and fight to protect Social Security.


North Dakota


Thursday, February 3, 9:00 AM:  Rally in Fargo, ND
Meet in front of the federal building downtown (Roberts St. & 2nd Ave North).  March to Bison Sports Arena, ND State University where the rally will continue outside Bush speech.
Signs will be available for the public


Thursday, February 3, 11:00 AM:  Rally in Bismarck, ND
Meet on the State Capitol steps.
Speakers, Folk Singer and Lunch provided
Signs will be available for the public


Montana


Thursday, February 3, 12:00 PM:  Rally in Great Falls, MT
Senator Baucus will be holding a rally/press conference in the Missouri Room of the Civic Center.
#2 Park Drive South, Great Falls, MT
Signs will be available for the public


Nebraska


Friday, February 4, 7:00 AM:  Rally in Omaha, NE
Meet at 10th & Capitol at Qwest Convention Center
Look for signs and stage by Convention Center
Signs will be available for the public


Arkansas


Friday, February 4, 11:30 AM:  Rally in Little Rock, AR
Meet at 11:15 AM in front of the Federal Building, 700 West Capitol Ave, Little Rock, AR.
March to corner of Markham and Broadway from the Federal Building.


Florida


Friday, February 4, 3:30 PM:  Rally in Tampa, FL
Curtis Hixon Park, 600 N. Ashley St. Between Polk St. & Zack St. on the Hillsborough River in down town Tampa
Signs will be available for the public


Thank you for joining with fellow progressives to tell the President Bush that we will not stand by and watch the radical right risk our retirement security by dismantling the most successful poverty elimination program in America.

Wellstone Action!www.wellstone.org

[flpoljunkie]

1. Josh Marshall, talkingpointsmemo.com,has labled it Bamboozlepalooza Tour!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_01_30.php#004638

(February 02, 2005 -- 04:35 PM EDT)

If we're not mistaken, tonight's State of the Union address (aka, the kick-off of the Bamboozlepalooza Tour) should knock the Fainthearted Faction and the Conscience Caucus into utter turmoil. And pretty much every member of Congress is going to be asked by some reporter somewhere what they think of President Bush's Social Security phase-out plan.

And let's be clear, that's what this is. The idea of phasing out only part of Social Security is just a con. The plan here is to get rid of Social Security entirely and replace it with a government system of private investment accounts in which everyone can sink or swim as well as they can manage.

If you don't make enough during your working life to save much, you're out of luck. If your investments go bad or you die young, you and your kids are out of luck too. On the margins there may well be a new system of elder welfare for those who can prove they would die or be without any means of support absent a government hand-out. But gone entirely will be the current Social Security system in which every American who pays into the system over their lifetime has a guaranteed bedrock of retirement security which can't be taken away ever, not as a matter of a handout or disgrace or pity, but as a matter of right to a modicum of comfort and dignity in retirement after a lifetime of work.

If you doubt that the plan is to get rid of Social Security entirely you are simply naive. Look at the structure of all the phase-out proposals. They don't really envision a hybrid system for the longterm. They are all designed to siphon money out of the system, weaken it, trigger the crisis President Bush now falsely claims exists and create an accelerating pressure to complete the process of phase-out.

[flpoljunkie]

2. Kick! Dubya's Bamboozlepalooza Tour begins today! Come out and Protest!

[CWebster]

3. Meanwhile, Kerry focuses on healthcare for children.

Not that there is anything wrong with that, but where are his damn priorities? They are threatening to cut the fundamental safety net and his babbling about expanding it?

What damn planet is he on? Get with it, man!!!!

[flpoljunkie]

4. Read JK's response to SOTU regarding Social Security & stop the sniping

The problems facing Social Security 50 years down the road can be fixed tomorrow if Washington ends the borrow-and-spend policies that are running up a record debt and dumping it on the backs of our children. The challenge of retirement security can be solved if we sit down in the true spirit of bipartisanship and make it possible for young people to save and invest while still guaranteeing that Social Security remains insurance against poverty and disability that can never be wiped away.

http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2005_0202.html