We have five weeks to tell Congress to let the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% expire and reject any benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Visit www.aflcio.org/ProtectOurFuture for all the information you need on the upcoming budget showdown. 

As Congress deliberates during the "lame-duck" session, benefits for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are being targeted for cuts. Some say benefit cuts are necessary because we face a debt crisis, but working families and their allies strongly reject such claims. It is true that we face a projected budget imbalance over the long term, but the answer is to tackle the real reasons for this imbalance and not use deficits as an excuse to pursue unrelated agendas.  Here are a few specific AFL-CIO suggestions that would tackle the true causes of this problem without cutting benefits.

We have five weeks to tell Congress to let the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% expire and reject any benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Visit www.aflcio.org/ProtectOurFuture for all the information you need on the upcoming budget showdown. 

Advocates for working families from 33 states are in Washington, D.C., Nov. 27 and 28 to ask members of Congress to let the Bush tax cuts for the top 2% expire and to reject cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Local AFL-CIO leaders will be joined by hundreds of advocates from other labor and progressive organizations.

We have five weeks to tell Congress to let the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% expire and reject any benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Visit www.aflcio.org/ProtectOurFuture for all the information you need on the upcoming budget showdown. 

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid aren't just numbers on a budget line, they're vital family protection lifelines for working people. 

Did you know 55.4 million Americans across the United States receive monthly Social Security checks, including 8.6 million workers with disabilities and 4.4 million children? A total of 48.7 million Americans get their health care coverage from Medicare and 64.4 million Americans get their health care coverage from Medicaid, including 29.8 million children and 4.2 million seniors.

"Inequality and Budget Deficits: Why Is Only the Latter an Emergency?" is a cross-post from Jared Bernstein's On the Economy blog. 

I just read two sweeping reports on the state of income inequality in the U.S. (the second link focuses on state-level inequality) and other advanced economies.  Perhaps it’s because I’ve been so ensconced in fiscal cliff discussions, but I was struck by how much more alarmed policymakers are by the budget deficit than by the inequality situation. There are reasons for that tilt—some good, some bad—but based on magnitudes of the problem, it’s far from clear that our current sole policy focus is warranted.

This is a cross-post from The Huffington Post, by Joe Baker, president of the Medicare Rights Center.

Although Election Day is behind us, Medicare remains on working people's minds. Medicare ranked third to the economy and federal deficit as an issue of extreme importance in deciding how people voted. For months now, pundits, candidates and policymakers have wrestled one another about Medicare's future. Taking place at town hall meetings and on editorial pages, these battles were mostly waged in fiscal terms. Medicare's sustainability, the fiscal slope and the cost of insuring the Baby Boomers are hot topics for debate. Attention will now turn from the candidates' promises to their actual proposals.

Some legislators and their friends on Wall Street are set on reaching a “grand bargain” during the post-election "lame duck" session of Congress that would cut the benefits that we and our children will depend on. They want to raise the retirement age for Social Security and Medicare, cut our Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA)and cut Medicaid, which could force families into bankruptcy when a loved one needs long-term care. 

Watch the video in the post, "Tell Congress: No Benefit Cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid," then sign this petition to tell them why Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are important to you.

Some news outlets have suggested that Republicans have changed their position on taxes after their resounding defeat on Tuesday. This is not the case. Republicans are still demanding lower tax rates for the richest 2% of Americans, paid for by cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.

Yesterday, the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, said that Republicans are “willing to accept new revenue under the right conditions.” But this is the same position Republicans have staked out for more than a year.

As working families all over the country celebrated President Obama's re-election last night, we also began mobilizing to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid from benefit cuts.

Sign the petition: www.aflcio.org/ProtectOurFuture.

Nearly 70,000 members of the Alliance for Retired Americans joined a call this week with Vice President Joe Biden to learn more about the Obama administration’s commitment to keeping Medicare and Social Security strong for future generations. The call was organized by the Alliance.

Cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid just so that millionaires and billionaires can continue to receive tax breaks and other giveaways? "We could not disagree more," says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in an Op-Ed in today's Politico, "Americans Don't Want 'Grand Bargain.'"