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Edited on Mon May-02-11 07:26 AM by MannyGoldstein
Like most all Americans, I'm thrilled that we no longer need to worry about bin Laden. Good riddance to a vicious and resourceful animal. And I'm pleased that we no longer have an idiot President who yammers crap like "deadoralive!" or "come 'n git us!".
However, we must keep this in perspective. 45,000 Americans die each year because they lack health care insurance. That's 15 9/11 attacks each year, more than one a month. Fortunately, have new health insurance reform laws that are likely to help that, but they mostly won't take effect for two years. We have done virtually nothing to reduce the cost of health care, which has been exploding for decades - these continued increases will soon make healthcare unaffordable for all but the wealthiest. And now we have a full-out Republican attempt to end Medicare, and the Democrats keep chanting "everything's on the table"; we know how "everything's on the table" has played out for working Americans every time it's come up with this President and Congress. There's also a bipartisan effort to gut Social Security, a program that has kept tens of millions of seniors from dire poverty over the last 70+ years, without adding a nickle to the deficit. The "Deficit Commission" voted to slash the average recipient's benefits by 22%, or $56,000 in lifetime benefits. How many will die when seniors are thrown back into poverty?
As people who believe in traditional Democratic values, we must all pull together and redouble our efforts: a great enemy has been killed, but a far more murderous enemy is still among us. There is much work to be done.
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