Fellow Democrats:

Peterson, along with his CEO David Walker intends to convince young people, business leaders, media, and congress that there is an “entitlement crisis.” He also wants to organize anti-entitlement youth groups to counter various senior advocacy organizations. With the $1 billion the Foundation is positioning itself to take up where Pres. Bush failed, continuing the attack on Social Security & Medicare, and he has a ready ear with the two co-chairmen of the aforementioned Committee who are intent on zeroing on the two entitlements. Besides privatization the Foundation will advocate to raise the retirement age to 73, implement means testing and institute massive benefit cuts.

The Foundation regards the current COLA increases in Social Security (which average 3% a year) as “one of the greatest fiscal tragedies of American history.”

Social Security will not go bankrupt. The system is projected to deliver FULL guaranteed benefits until 2037 without making any changes or reform, and the Trust Fund will continue to pay more than 75% of benefits for many years after that. Modest changes (such as increasing the $106,000 income cap contribution) will enable the system to meet 100% of its benefits for many decades to come.

Our condolences were extended to Clemma Younger and family upon the passing of her husband, Richard (Dick). We were happy to hear that Murray Kahn has made a full recovery from his illness. Hope to see you at our meeting. Our numerous “Meet the Candidates” bar-b-que and gubernatorial candidate meetings were well attended. Thanks to all who planned and those who attended. Many of us were shocked at Vic Rawl’s defeat in the U.S. Senatorial primary. I wrote to Blaine Lotz, Chairman of the Beaufort County Democratic Party and suggested he use his influence to have the victory of Alvin Greene investigated. I believe the basic problem is the “open primary” system used in South Carolina. This system permits registered members of a political party to vote for candidates of the opposite political party, in effect causing the ballot box to be stuffed with the vote for the weaker candidate. Hence, one votes for Greene (who has no chance to beat Sen. DeMint) and you thereby eliminate Rawl who has a fighting chance to beat Sen. DeMint. I also urged that inquiry be made into how the $10,400 primary filing fee was paid by Mr. Greene who is unemployed.

This practice of “open primary” can be abused by Republicans and Democrats, and from what I hear has been done in the past. State criminal charges were initiated during a race where Ravenell was involved. Since the race involving Greene & Rawl was for a federal seat, federal investigators would be involved. Congressman Clyburn has called for such an investigation.

Please make every effort to attend our meeting on Tuesday, June 15. Every attempt is made to make our meetings interesting and informative.

Paul Russo, President

Don’t you get tired of hearing the same old talking points from the “Party of No” that the public does not want healthcare reform? Well, the Kaiser Family Foundation Tracking Poll, Jan, 2010, reveals that knowing the details of the legislation makes a difference. Here are the facts of percentage of people who said they were more likely to support healthcare reform legislation after becoming aware that it would:

“TEA PARTY” MEETING FIGHTS NEW TAXES” “Charges of ’taxation without representation,’ ’confiscation’ and ’unwarranted waste’ rang in the old South Meeting House this afternoon.” NY Times, July 30, 1935 “INQUIRY INTO HIGH SALARIES PRESSED BY THE GOVERNMENT” “Since last May the Federal Reserve Board has inquired into possibly excessive compensation paid to officers of member banks.” NY Times Oct. 29,1933 “HOW BIG A NATIONAL DEBT CAN WE STAND?” “The truth of the matter is that we do not know whether we have gone as far as we can go in debt…A lot of people are sure we are bankrupt already.” NY Times Jan. 27, 1952

1) Estimated cost to locate, process, and deport all illegal immigrants in the United States: $285 billion (Center for American Progress)

2) Percentage of all U.S. stimulus funds for renewable energy since Sept., 2009 that have gone to foreign companies - 79% (Russ Choma, Investigative Reporting Workshop-Washington)

3) Longest period, in days, between formal TV news conference by Pres. Bush: 204 days. Longest elapsed time since Pres. Obama’s last such conference: 278 days. (Mark Knoller, CBS News)

4) National Quinipiac University Poll, 5/28/10, 40% approve of how the President is “handling creating jobs”. This is 6% higher than in Jan. 2010. More people believe that the President’s policies have helped the economy - 39%, rather than hurt the economy - 29%. 45% believe that his policies will help the economy going forward as opposed to only 32% who believe they will hurt the economy. Pres. Obama holds a substantial lead over Republicans in Congress on who’s more trusted to handle the economy (45-36).

More than one-third of it $288 billion-came in the form of tax cuts, making it one of the largest tax cuts in history, with sizable credits for energy conservation and renewableenergy production as well as home-buying and college tuition. The stimulus also promised $19billion for the critical policy arena of health information technology and more than $1 billion to advance research on the effectiveness of health care treatments.

There were also massive investments in green technologies, clean water and smart grid for electricity, while the $70 billion or more in energy and environmental programs was perhaps the most ambitious advancement in these areas in modern times. Congress…did it in one bill…expanding children’s health insurance and providing stiff oversight of the TARP funds allocated by the previous Congress. Most of this has been accomplished without any support from Republicans in either the House or Senate - an especially striking fact, since many of the initiatives of the New Deal and the Great Society…attracted significant backing from the minority Republicans…people who enthusiastically support their state’s health-care system (Massachusetts) were hostile tothe very similar plan passed by Congress. Why? Because it was a product of Congress.…the GOP will probably be emboldened to double down on its opposition to everything, trying to bring the Obama presidency to its knees on the way to 2010. Given the Precarious coalitions in our otherwise dysfunctional politics, we could go quickly from one of the most productive Congresses in our lifetimes to the most obstructionist.”

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