I got this in my inbox today.

[gbate]

Subject: FW: Social Security

Mom was a homemaker and Dad worked all his life and paid into SS. Dad has
passed away and now Mom can barely make ends meet. While the possible
"illegal" alien in front of her at the grocry store buys the name brands,
Mom goes for the generic brands, and day old breads. She doesn't have out of
state calling on her phone, because she can't afford it and shops at the
thrift shops and dollar stores. She considers having a pizza delivered once
a week "eating out". She grew up during the depression, watched her husband
go overseas to fight in WW II a year after their marriage, and then they
went on to raise, feed and clothe 5 children, struggling to pay tuition for
parochial schools.

The Senate voted this week to allow "illegal" aliens access to Social
Security benefits. I'm sorry, but how can the Senate justify this slap in
the face to born and bred, or naturalized citizens.

It is already impossible to live on Social Security alone. If they give
benefits to "illegal" aliens who have never contributed, where does that
leave us that have paid into Social Security all our working lives?

Attached is an opportunity to sign a petition that requires citizenship for
eligibility to receive Social services. If you do not wish to sign the
petition yourself, please forward on to anyone you think might be
interested.

PETITION FOR:
President Bush
Mr. President: The petition below is a protest against the recent vote of
the senate which was to allow illegal aliens access to our social security!
We demand that you and all congressional representatives require citizenship
for anyone to be eligible for social services in the United States

What follows is a list of the petition signers. :eyes:

[GCP]

1. "Possible" Illegal alien?

How the fuck does this guy know what the immigration status of someone is? This is so typical of "divide and conquer" - the same old playbook of the reich wing. For a start I've never heard of giving SS benefits to illegals, and if they did, then you can bet your bottom dollar they'd have to contribute to SS from then on - so a net increase of people contributing to SS would be a good thing, no?

[jobycom]

2. When an email starts out with one of these personalized tales

I don't read to the end of the first sentence. I might skim to see what the basic subject is, but you already know it's a Republican hit piece. Democrats start out their emails with facts, not emotional appeals.

[MyNameGoesHere]

3. haha i like this response in a forum

Maybe if your mom was motivated enough to cross 200 miles of gun toating redneck filled desert in a 125 degree weather, while she came to America and worked for 5.25 and hour to pay for her daughter to come over in a crate full of Mexican Bean Burritos, you would understand everyone has gone through their own battles in their lives. While you use your life to insist Hispanics are getting a free ride, they are doing nothing of the sort, they are merely trying to survive and provide the best life possible. Don't blame your mistakes on a cause you disagree on. She's not eating pizza once a week because of Mr Juan Gonzales, she's eating pizza because she didn't plan for retirement, never received a proper education, or just has bad luck. Needless to say, she should be thankful, because in many countries things are much worst, and that pizza which you portray as basic food would seem like a life changing event for many people in this world.

[thepurpose]

4. Urban Legend?

http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/socialsecurity.asp

[rasputin1952]

5. These types of stories pop up from the boiler rooms of GOP ...

operatives.

There ARE people who are suffering on SS alone, and if the Govt would keep theri mitts out of SS, there would be a lot of money in the fund instead of a bunch of IOUs.


FWIW, there are a gazillion programs out there to aid the elderly, and as an aside, where is the family that this woman worked so hard to provide for? Seems to me, if they had their "values" in order, they would be helping their Mom...after all, isn't that what the the GOP always harps on about?

[fasttense]

6. The "facts" are not accurate.

Illegal (or legal) Mexican immigrants can only get Social Security after proving they worked 18 months in the US and eight and a half years legally in Mexico. The US has similar agreements with other countries. A US citizen must work 10 years to get Social Security.

[Lasher]

9. Totalization Agreement

The tired old email in the OP that's referenced at Snopes is about a measure that did not pass. It's not the same as the more recent issue of a US - Mexican Social Security Totalization Agreement.

I learned of the Totalization Agreement in January. According to reports, a bipartisan seniors organization called the TREA Senior Citizens League filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to force the Social Security Administration to release a copy of the US - Mexican Social Security Totalization Agreement that was signed by the social security commissioners of Mexico and the US in June 2004. Junior has not yet signed the agreement. Once he has, the agreement would sit in Congress for 60 session days. If both houses of Congress do not take action within that time to oppose the agreement, it can move forward.

You are correct to say that the US has such agreements with other countries. There are 20 of them, which are listed here. There are reasons to conclude, however, that such an arrangement with Mexico would not be as advantageous for the US as are these 20.

Economies in all these 20 nations are more prosperous than that of Mexico. I will use per capita GDP as a rule of thumb for comparison. Chile is ranked lowest of the 20, at 57 out of 181 listed nations. All of the 19 others are ranked 37 and above. The US is 3. Mexico is 65.

Another objection is that the retirement systems of these 20 countries are similar to that of the US Social Security program, while that of Mexico is not. Americans receive benefits after working for 10 years, but Mexicans have to work 24 years before receiving any benefits. Mexican workers receive back in retirement only what they actually paid in plus interest, whereas the U.S. Social Security system is skewed to give lower-wage earners benefits greatly in excess of what they and their employers contributed. And only 40 percent of Mexican private sector employees pay into their retirement system, compared to 96 percent of public and private sector employees in the US.

69% of the illegal aliens living in the US in January 2000 were from Mexico, according to a study by US Immigration and Naturalization Service. None of the 20 current Totalization Agreement countries individually accounts for even 1 percent of illegals in the US.

The proposed US - Mexican Social Security Totalization Agreement is unlike the 20 current agreements with other countries in that it offers no parity and the potential ramifications are enormous. With the magnitude of new US Social Security beneficiaries that is likely, it is ludicrous to proceed without any serious discussion of the cost, and from where the money will come.

[Kindigger]

7. LTTE

Jerk off wrote Tom Harkin voted to give illegal aliens SS.

I didn't think it was worth my time to reply to this guy's stupidity, but I did call him on the phone and give him the address of snopes.com.



(Actually, the vote was whether or not to allow illegals who later become citizens, to benefit from SS credits earned using stolen SS #'s, identities. )

[LeftishBrit]

8. Perhaps if her government hadn't thrown a lot of money into creating and maintaining a quagmire in

Iraq; and if they weren't so preoccupied with cutting rich people's taxes; then there might have been more in the pot for this unfortunate woman's social security?

Failing that, perhaps some of the five grown-up children could help out a bit, instead of blaming the evil foreigners for everything?

And I doubt VERY much that illegal immigrants in *any* country are eligible for social security. Does this e-mail mean 'immigrants who were at one time illegal' or just 'immigrants in general'?

It sounds like divide-and-rule tactics, all right.