Hugh J. Campbell of the United Steelworkers (USW) sends us this blog. 

For three decades, attempts to undermine Social Security and Medicare have been considered “touching the third-rail” because the two programs are valued by our middle class and aspiring middle class. But to the financial elite, these safety-net programs have been the bane of their existence.

Valuing the power of psychology, the financial elite set out not only to undermine this American value but to replace it. The elite have been the chief beneficiaries of U.S. recessions, in many ways, not the least being an opportunity to demand additional tax cuts. Economic downturns rarely end with the middle class being better off, but the ruling class gets to keep their tax cuts.

After more than 25 years of waging anti-government campaigns, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) has been so successful that in 2012 Romney-Ryan and their fellow tax-pledge signers believe they can replace the Social Security and Medicare safety net with the conservative third rail, which is “tax cuts are forever.”

Dick Polman, the op-ed author of “The American Debate: Touching the Third Rail,” reminds us that the conservative think-tank intelligentsia loves Ryan’s plan to abolish the insurance guarantee of Medicare. With one hand, the conservative financiers have engineered a declining revenue stream for the federal government with a combination of irreversible tax cuts and the offshoring of jobs. With the other hand, they vilify the cost of post-retirement Social Security and Medicare.

Only time will tell if self-professed defenders of the middle class will seize the opportunity to connect the dots for the American voters in 2012.