Hi, this is Jason from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.
I want you to meet Alan Simpson. He really (really!) wants to gut Social Security. And he's in charge of a commission determining the future of Social Security [the so-called "debt commission"].
How did that happen? Well, President Obama appointed him to be in charge. Why did Obama do that? I have no idea.
Simpson has a lot of power over the future of Social Security, Medicare and the like. And he also says really crazy things. So today, we launched a new website: StuffAlanSimpsonSays.com
It's a little bit of a quiz -- can you tell which Alan Simpson quotes are real and which are fake? I have a hard time myself and I helped create the website! I bet you can't get all of them right -- seriously, try it.
We might be having fun here, but the point is very serious: Everyone in America (and everyone in Congress) needs to know just how crazy and un-credible the entire commission is. They need to really understand who's leading it and the seriously unhinged thinking going on behind those closed doors. The commission is a joke, a bad idea, completely undemocratic, and entirely unworthy of serious consideration.
It's up to us to spread the word.
How did this all come about? Short version: Alan Simpson also likes to run his mouth.
He talks to everyone - television pundits, newspaper reporters, activists in hallways, even bloggers who write about him and his commission. And the stuff he says is - to put it mildly - disturbing. Nevermind his lack of common decency, his views about what Social Security is, how it functions, and how to make it work for everybody are oftentimes just dead wrong. And this is the guy who's supposed to be determining its future!
Just the other day, Simpson became a lot more famous for this quote, in response to a blog post written by OWL director Ashley Carson:
"I’ve made some plenty smart cracks about people on Social Security who milk it to the last degree. You know ‘em too. It’s the same with any system in America. We’ve reached a point now where it’s like a milk cow with 310 million tits! Call when you get honest work!"
That got us at the Progressive Change Campaign Committee thinking -- this wasn't the first time Alan Simpson has said something crazy, and it's getting hard to tell what's real and what's not, given the sheer amount of crazy things Simpson says in public.
So we created this new website: StuffAlanSimpsonSays.com
The fact that it's so hard to tell whether a given quote by Alan Simpson is real or not underscores the craziness of the whole idea of a commission to determine the future of Social Security.
Here you have a group of people, the majority of whom are millionaires at least. Among their numbers? A multimillionaire defense contractor (David Cote), a corporate CEO (Ann M. Fudge), and only one economist (Alice Rivlin) who's claim to fame is advocating for $47 billion in cuts to Social Security. The group's executive director is Bruce Reed, CEO of the corporate-funded Democratic Leadership Council.
This group meets in secret.
And then at the end of the day, Congress has to vote on whatever these unaccountable people recommend, without amendment -- no changes allowed.
That's just crazy.
And on top of that, the co-chair of this secret commission - Alan Simpson - has a) no idea what he's talking about when it comes to Social Security and b) is incredibly offensive to just about everyone he talks to.
Check out StuffAlanSimpsonSays.com if you don't believe me -- some of the actual things he said are just mind-blowing.
Enjoy, learn, allow yourself to be a bit shocked - and then share it with your friends so everyone gets the message we need to save Social Security, not hand it over to people like Alan Simpson.
(Click here to tweet about the site, or here to share it on Facebook and help get the word out!)