Jeb Bush’s recent comments calling for the dismantling of Social Security have not gone unnoticed. After being relentlessly attacked for it on social media, he was confronted by voters themselves at a New Hampshire town hall event. An elderly woman who did not identify herself stood up and challenged him on his desire to make the Koch Brothers’ plot to destroy the safety net a reality:
“We’re not going to have adequate coverage for our children or our grandchildren without Medicare. I paid into that for years and years just like all these other seniors here and now you want to take it away?…Why are you always attacking the seniors?”
Bush, cowed, still tried to stand his ground: “Well, I’m not…here’s what I said: I said we’re going to have to reform our entitlement system. We have to.” Then the woman shut him down with “it’s not an entitlement. I earned that.”
Bush tried to protest and make some half-hearted appeals to fiscal responsibility and the supposed unsustainability of Social Security, but there’s no justifying or excusing these remarks. Jeb! and the rest of the 2016 Republican clown car are intent on destroying our social safety net for the Kochs, and turning it into a for-profit model to sell back to us. We can’t allow that to happen. Our people deserve so much better.