Mary Jane says she brought her hand-made sign “Rich Tax Dodgers Pay Your Fair Share” to Capitol Hill this afternoon because:

I’m extremely concerned about the debt ceiling deal. I’m extremely concerned that a “bipartisan” deal will mean big cuts for Social Security and Medicare.

She was one of several hundred people at the “Save the American Dream” rally outside the House of Representatives on a hot July day. Inside House Speaker John Boehner and Republican leaders were pushing a debt ceiling deal that relies on cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid other essential working family and low-income programs while letting the wealthy and corporations off scot-free.

Many in the crowd of community, progressive and union activists carried signs: “Save the American Dream,” “Hands off Social Security and Medicare,” “Say No to Republican Games.”

AFGE President John Gage told the crowd, “There are two things I don’t like, losing and being bullied.”

They are not going to bully us into losing. This is a totally manufactured crisis. What’s on the table now is embarrassing. We will draw the line on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and we’re not going to back down.

Republicans have already shown they are willing to go to extremes to press their ideological views. That they shutdown the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) simply because they do not want rail aviation workers to have the right to fair and democratic union elections is proof of that.

One furloughed 30-year FAA worker and AFSCME member told the crowd:

What they are doing to the FAA and what they are doing with their debt ceiling showdown is costly, dangerous and wrong. They are showing the same callous disregard for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as they are for the 90,000 workers whose jobs are threatened by the FAA shutdown.  They are radical politicians who are not looking for the whole nation, just for the privileged.

Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) said the Republicans are acting as if they had a mandate from the majority of the country with stubborn insistence on their plan or no plan and their refusal to ask corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share to avoid a catastrophic default on the nation’s debt.

We will not allow a minority in this country to destroy the American dream….We will not allow them to put the full burden on the backs of working families.