Letter to AARP

Dear AARP:

I have received your letters regarding congressional moves to cut Medicare and turn it into a voucher program, and to fail to preserve Social Security at its present levels. As AARP members and as citizens who are 63 and 64 years old, my wife and I are just as dismayed and alarmed at these developments as you are.

Your letters appeal for money to assist your campaign to fight these outrages. But in order to secure our financial support I am going to require some more information from you.

First, your letters provide no details on what your campaign consists of. There is a vague reference to “push our elected leaders to do the right thing and protect our promised benefits.” Please explain how AARP intends to do that, and how additional money will be used in that effort: hire more lobbyists, buy TV ads, offer political contributions, or what?

Second, your letters appear to skirt reference to the elephant in the room. You say a “new federal budget introduced in the House of Representatives.” You refer to “powerful forces on Capitol Hill.” Let’s be frank. Those who introduced this inhumane and immoral budget are the Republicans. The “powerful forces” you refer to, who wish to take life-saving medical care and a bare subsistence pension away from vulnerable seniors are the Republicans.

I know you want to try to be a nonpartisan organization, but these are the political realties we face. Your current letter includes petitions for me to sign to my senators and representative. I have signed and included them in the envelope, but these are unnecessary. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris in the Senate and Scott Peters in the House are Democrats who strongly support Medicare and Social Security. They will do the right thing without any prodding. On the other hand, verbal appeals to Republicans will fall on deaf ears. They are the ones committed to cutting taxes and slashing Medicare and Social Security. They are the “powerful forces” who introduced the very legislation you rightly decry. No amount of jawboning is going to change their misguided devotion to their lamentable ideology. 

No, if you want to protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security your campaign needs to focus on alerting the American people about who is working to reduce or eliminate these crucial programs. You will not safeguard these vital benefits without defeating Republicans and electing solid Democratic majorities to both Houses of Congress. If that is the intent of your campaign then please let me know as soon as possible so I can rush my contribution to assist you in your efforts.  If it is not, then stop wasting my time and your efforts in a quixotic crusade

Do you really want to save Medicare and Social Security, or do you just want money to protect your jobs while paying lip service to standing up for us? Then let me know your campaign will be focused on electing our supporters and defeating those who threaten our very lives and my generous support will be on its way.

Steve Natoli,

12122 Royal Birkdale Row Unit 306, San Diego, CA 92128 

(559) 303-4671