November, 28 2012, 02:11pm EDT
Kucinich to Corporate CEOs: Push the Middle Class Off the Cliff? No WAY!
“Those who have already shoved their own retiring workers off the fiscal cliff want to do it to the rest of the middle class and poor. NO WAY.”
WASHINGTON
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today continued his unstinting defense of working people in America. Rep. Kucinich took to the House floor to tell 71 CEOs visiting Washington that the American people will not accept a fix to the so-called fiscal cliff that includes cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
See video here. The full text of his remarks follow.
"Highly-paid CEOs are in town to tell America how to avoid the 'fiscal cliff.'
"The top priority of the 'Fix the Debt CEOs' is to cut the essential commitments of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. No skin off their noses. Sorry, you 50 million Americans who are in poverty. Too bad, you millions of children, elderly, and poor who rely on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Unemployed? You are just out of luck if you lose unemployment benefits.
"These 71 CEOs who come to Washington to preach fiscal austerity have average retirement assets of $9.1 million. That's about a $65,000 pension check each month for the rest of their lives. In contrast, the average monthly Social Security check for retired workers is $1,237.
"Of all these debt cutting CEOs, only two have sufficient assets in their company's pension funds to meet their obligations to their own workers. The rest who pay any pension at all have underfunded their workers' pension funds by $103 billion.
"Those who have already shoved their own retiring workers off the fiscal cliff want to do it to the rest of the middle class and poor. NO WAY."
Dennis Kucinich is an American politician. A U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1997 to 2013, he was also a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2004 and 2008.
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