While I don’t agree with everything Obama and the Democrats propose, I vote for them because I remember Bush’s attempt to kill Social Security when the Republicans were at the height of their power a few years ago. This is an example of their long-range plan to undo all the Democrats’ social progress of almost 100 years, especially the New Deal.

Listen to Grover Norquist, one of their guiding lights. “It will soon be time to begin phasing out the income tax and replace it with a consumer tax.” What he doesn’t say is that the value added tax is a Republican dream-scheme to replace income, inheritance and business taxes. This is not just some tea party crackpot talking. Norquist is an example of the core string-pullers in the party. When some senator holds a hearing in which he rails against Social Security’s “fraud and abuse,” he is playing to contributors who want the whole system dead, including Medicare. Ending oversight of banks and a return to 1928 is in their wish-list. But giving Social Security the funds to adequately review disability cases is not. Better to be able to complain about it and how evil the IRS is. Better to be able to campaign about abortion and guns while they’re planning another great fleecing of the American middle-class. The very rich are never satisfied. Long live the memory of FDR. Go Sid.

Doug Grandpre

Lake Stevens