Okie Democrats Stand Up Against Bush

We should all commend those three Democrats in the Oklahoma Legislature who are trying to pass a state resolution that would ask Congress to reject President George Bush’s plan to dismantle Social Security by privatizing the system.

The three legislators, Reps. Ryan Kiesel (Seminole) and Richard Morrissette (Oklahoma City), and Sen. Kenneth Corn (Howe), have the courage and tenacity to stand up against Oklahoma’s entrenched, right-wing power structure on this important issue. (The Okie conservative, fat-cats are already howling about this one.)

Their resolution simply asks Congress to reject Bush’s risky scheme that would allow younger workers to set up private investment accounts with their Social Security money. The point is not necessarily to tell Congress what to do but to show the legislative body that there is a growing grassroots movement—even in Oklahoma’s Bush country—against the president’s plan to transfer billions of tax dollars to wealthy Wall Street bankers.

Ultimately, some argue, the president’s plan would mean reduced benefits for everyone in the country, including those retired people now collecting Social Security. The system cannot sustain the costs of the private investment accounts without major cuts of some type.

This Republican plan to destroy Social Security is part of its continuing immoral scheme to transfer even more money to the wealthiest people in our country. Since Bush has taken office, the rich have gotten richer off the backs of hard-working people in Oklahoma and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the job market remains stagnant, health costs are up, and the price of gasoline is skyrocketing.

The Daily Oklahoman, of course, is already howling about the state resolution. An April 5 editorial, titled “Leave it alone: State Security effort is off base,” argues that the three are “pandering to the AARP (American Association of Retired People) wing of the Democratic Party.” The “AARP wing”? Give me a break. This is deceitful and immoral. (Funko Heads, I ask you to picture some weird Oklahoman editorial writer hectoring a poor, elderly person in a wheelchair. That, essentially, is what is going on here.) The American Association of Retired People is not a political organization. It simply opposes Bush on this particular plan and rightly so. It has supported the president on other plans.

But, of course, the editorial will not mention that because the newspaper is part of a ongoing smear campaign against the AARP.

Do you think Christy Gaylord Everest, a principal owner and the publisher of The Daily Oklahoman, will ever have to rely on a Social Security check to make ends meet? Of course not.

So why won’t she call off her editorial dogs on this issue? Does she not have any conscience whatsoever? How much more money does she need?

And what about our right-wing U.S. Senators Tom Coburn and Jim Inhoffe, or how about the rest of Oklahoma’s morally-challenged Congressional delegation, including Representatives Ernest Istook and Tom Cole? Will they ever need a Social Security check to buy groceries or life-sustaining medicine or make a mortgage payment? Of course not.

Everest and our right-wing Congressional delegation do not care about you or your future or your children. They want your money, as much as they can get, and they are laughing behind your back all the way to the bank.

So I think it a good, healthy sign in Oklahoman that these three courageous state politicians will brave the scorn of the state’s largest newspaper and the entrenched filthy-rich and right-wing power structure to protect the future retirement of ordinary, hard-working Oklahomans. It takes guts to stand up to the Oklahoma power structure, which is constantly squelching dissent in subtle and obvious ways.

Let’s hope it’s a part of something larger here.