There are relentless congressional efforts underway to privatize social security and to get the public to readily go along with it, you hear politicians say things like, “Entitlements are killing us!” “We have to reform entitlements!” “The debt is unmanageable.” “We have too much debt and we must reform entitlements!” “Social security is going to go broke!” “We can’t keep paying social security benefits at the same rate we’re paying now – we’ll go broke!” It’s all hype designed to scare you into letting those nice folks in Congress “take care of us poor hapless minions that haven’t a clue how to save ourselves from this very dismal future!” Malarky! I’m going to educate you a bit so you’ll know what it’s all about and how we’re going to fix it! But you have to help! You have to make noise! Your congressional representative and Senators have to know that you are serious and will vote their asses out of office if they don’t start taking care of the 95% of Americans that don’t make enough money to hit the cap on social security taxes! Too easy! Social security (OASDI – the Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance) part of the fund, in 2012, had a reserve of $2.732 Trillion dollars! While it’s true that we are beginning to pay out more than is taken in, we are about two plus decades away from running the fund out of money at today’s rates of inflows and outflows. But guess what? SOCIAL SECURITY DOES NOT ADD ONE PENNY TO THE NATIONAL DEBT! The TV hype, regardless of your party affiliation, will make you think that social security spending is very bad indeed and it seems many Americans think it increses deficit spending. IT DOES NOT! NOT ONE PENNY! Yes, it’s true, Social Security and Medicare together is about 38 percent of federal budget expenditures but so what! This is our money that we gave to the Governemtn for the sole purpose of providing needed social program services! But it drives them nuts to think that there is $2.7 Trillion dollars just sitting there not being used by banks and financial institutions to gamble with! And with that gambling (privatization) comes very sizable kick-backs to members of Congress for having privatized Social Security to begin with! Wow! What a windfall for corporate interests! hey, Here's $2.7 Trillion dollars you can go play with! Some in congress want to start a "voucher" system for Medicare payments with a lifetime benefit cap! Ever been cut off or denied a procedure or medical service by an insurance company? What do you think will happen to social security if privatized? Privatization means FOR PROFIT not FOR PEOPLE as it is today! How to make sure social security stays around forever? Too easy - get rid of the cap on social security wages! Those top 5% of earners in America that make more than $113,700 per year do not pay any additional social security taxes. In other words, as a percentage of their income, they pay less than you do (lower rate). Does that sound fair? Mitt Romney, for example, pays ZERO social security taxes – all of his income is derived from financial investments, which are not taxed for social security. Warren Buffett the same, Bill Gates and many others but just a few names you may recognize. Removing the payroll cap on Social Security taxes will generate an additional $100 Billion a year for social security and it will come from the top 5% of wage earners in this country. Most Americans won’t pay a dime more. Please support this petition and share with your friends. Let’s let our Congressional representatives know we want equity in the system and we want the cap on payroll taxes removed!

Today, more than 123,000 Virginians earn minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage would help many families and boost our economy. In real dollars, today’s minimum wage is LESS than it was in 1968, and we’re way overdue for a raise. Virginia lawmakers are considering SB 590, a bill that would raise Virginian’s minimum wage to $8.25 by July 1, 2014, and then to $9.25 by July 1, 2015. Sign the petition to Virginia lawmakers now.

In this year’s State of the Union address, President Obama called on Congress to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 – an idea popular among many Republican, Independent, and Democratic voters. Bruce Elder will deliver this petition to Rep. Bob Goodlatte demanding he support a minimum-wage increase to bring 511,000 working Virginians — 1 in 7 — above the poverty line. Will you sign this petition?

In his State of the Union, President Obama called on Congress to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 – an idea popular among many Republican, Independent, and Democratic voters. We'll deliver this petition to Paul Ryan demanding he give 461,000 Wisconsin residents a raise by supporting a minimum-wage increase. Will you stand with Rob?

In his State of the Union, President Obama called on Congress to raise the minimum wage to $10.10. Pat will deliver this petition to Senator Grassley demanding he stand up for Iowan working families and support a minimum-wage increase. Will you sign this petition? We’ll invite the media to our petition delivery. The more signatures we have, the more likely the media will cover our fight on this issue – so please tell others too.

I have no significant debt and our family owns our house free of mortgage. I think that it is only fair for our citizens to0 be relieved of more pain and to start to be happy again. This was a blood bath and the blood is in everybody's hands. At the very least, the private debt o0f every family with an income below 50K should be reset to zero.

This petition is mainly to help keep our money in our community of Decatur, IL. We have many empty lots for new stores and if someone opened a popular store it would help make money for our mall and community. Many people order online from the stores we do not have or go out of town for them, why can't we just bring them here or start a petition to see how many people really want Hollister to come to the Decatur, IL (Forsyth) mall.

I earned $22.68 too much in my high quarter to qualify for unemployment this winter and there are others who were affected with even lower amounts. As a Construction Inspector, I am required to work as the contractors do , sometimes putting in 60 to 80 hours a week in the "good weather" months, I have worked in the off season as an on call person for occasional tasks , but not enough to sustain my family. I along with others in the construction/seasonal fields sacrifice time with family, must pay for a lot of expenses on the road and feel this is a targeting of one specific group to lower the amount of people who collect unemployment when laid off through no fault of their own.

In his State of the Union, President Obama called on Congress to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 – an idea popular among many Republican, Independent, and Democratic voters. Shenna Bellows will deliver this petition to Rep. Susan Collins demanding she give 96,000 Maine residents a raise by supporting a minimum-wage increase. Can you sign this petition?

When President Obama gave his state of the union, he called for raising the minimum wage to give working Americans a chance to make a living wage. Senator Toomey said that he does not support the president or raising the minimum wage. Toomey said, "The fact is, [raising the minimum wage] prices people out of work." No one who is working should live in poverty. The current minimum wage is not a living wage, it keeps over 1 million hard-working Pennsylvanians in poverty, and does not take into account the rising costs of supporting and feeding a family. As a society, we must do better, we must provide a basic standard of living and a pathway to economic mobility. That is why, if elected to Congress, I will continue the fight that I started in the Pennsylvania legislature to raise the minimum wage and tie it to an annual cost of living adjustment so that we never have to have these fights again.

We'll deliver the petitions to Rep. Duffy's office next week.

My name is Rhiannon Broschat and I've been working at Whole Foods for almost two years. Chicago experienced severe weather on Tuesday, January 28 with subzero temperatures and high windchill prompting Chicago Public Schools to close. The dangerous cold and schools closing in addition to me being a single mother, left me scrambling for childcare and unable to find anyone to watch my special needs son. As a result, I was forced to call off work to stay home and care for him. Whole Foods, instead of understanding my difficult situation, fired me. Recently, Whole Foods promised a more fair attendance policy which includes excused absences for "a metro wide weather disaster, which affects a significant number of people." I work hard every single day to make Whole Food's a thriving business, yet they claim I was abusing their attendance policy. Stand with me as I protest this unfair termination and demand that Whole Foods immediately reinstates me!