After Medicare deductions, Marty Alvarado has about $950 left in her monthly Social Security check. The Alliance for Retired Americans members from Dallas told a Capitol Hill Hands Off Social Security summit of Alliance members, lawmakers, senior activists and Social Security advocates:

As you might imagine that’s very difficult to live on. I cannot afford to lose any of my benefits due to the chained CPI cut in benefits. This is especially important to me as a woman. Women represent 57% of all Social Security beneficiaries. Chained CPI would hit female beneficiaries especially hard because we tend to live longer.

The budget that President Obama released today is drawing intense criticism for its cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called those cuts “wrong and indefensible.”

A president’s budget is more than just numbers. It is a profoundly moral document. We believe cutting Social Security benefits and shifting costs to Medicare beneficiaries—while exempting corporate America from shared sacrifice—is wrong and indefensible. 

Take a look at these videos of working families who are speaking out against Republican lawmakers' attempt to shove the economy to the edge of another manufactured fiscal crisis in order to extract painful benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and protect tax breaks and big loopholes for corporations and the wealthy. Working families demonstrated outside the offices of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

UPDATE: With a large number of House Republicans refusing to back asking millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share in taxes, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) pulled his “Plan B.” from the floor last night and adjourned the House. No negotiations between Republicans and the Obama White House on the expiring middle class tax cuts and automatic spending cuts set to go into effect Jan. 1 are scheduled.  But a White House spokesman said, “The president will work with Congress to get this done, and we are hopeful that we will be able to find a bipartisan solution quickly that protects the middle class and our economy.”  

If House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) “really wanted to address the true causes of our long-term budget imbalance, the last thing he would ask Congress to do is pass more wasteful tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans,” AFL-CIO Government Affairs Director Bill Samuel said in a letter to House members today.

Social Security survivor benefits make it possible for children to live at home instead of being sent to an orphanage when a parent dies. Social Security old age benefits ensure you can retire with dignity. If you become disabled or injured on the job, Social Security disability benefits will help keep you afloat. 

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.

When Mitt Romney dismissed 47 percent of the population as shiftless riff-raff who pay no income taxes and live off government largess, the Republican presidential nominee “spit in the face of everyday people who know what it means to work incredibly hard and still sometimes fail to get by,” says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

New Hampshire Labor News sends us this.  

What’s in New Hampshire Rep. Charlie Bass’s (R) "trash?"

Social Security, Medicare and affordable education, as it turns out. The contents of the New Hampshire congressman’s "garbage can" came to light yesterday as young workers and seniors from the Granite State questioned his commitment to his constituents after he voted for Paul Ryan’s extreme budget. Said Terri Lochhead, an organizer for the Alliance for Retired Americans:

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are under attack by Republican lawmakers. Whether it is the Romney/Ryan budget that would end Medicare as we know it or proposals to privatize and cut Social Security, members of the Alliance for Retired Americans are pushing back and mobilizing with new “Let’s Not Be the Last Generation to Retire” campaign. Actions across the country will coincide with Medicare’s and Medicaid’s 47th anniversary July 30 and Social Security’s 77th on Aug. 14.

Social Security is popular.

It is one of the most, if not the most, popular federal government-run programs. It is social insurance, not welfare. It provides Americans with a reliable source of income when: a senior retires from work, a child loses a working parent or if a worker becomes disabled.

Social Security is an American promise.  We pay into the program during our working lives and we’re entitled to collect benefits. We paid for it. It’s our money.