With more than twenty years’ experience speaking out on issues important to seniors, the 60 Plus Association is a non-partisan senior’s advocacy group with a free-enterprise, less government philosophy. Our more than 7 million members routinely speak out on topics such as energy policy, Medicare, government spending, and taxes. We’ve vehemently opposed Obamacare and protested out-of-control government waste.
Seniors need strong advocates. That’s why it is so disappointing to witness AARP continue its ongoing charade of advocacy, this time in front of the Alabama Public Service Commission on utility rates. Evidence has mounted in past years that AARP cares little about the struggles of seniors, resulting in massive drops in the organization’s membership rolls. The truth is that seniors aren’t really leaving AARP; it is AARP that has abandoned seniors through a litany of selfish decisions and affiliations with liberal causes.
Most egregious was AARP’s decision to wholeheartedly support Obamacare. Despite outcries from longstanding leaders within the organization and their own members registering their opposition to the legislation by a margin of 14 to 1, the AARP showed their true liberal colors by throwing their full weight behind this bad law. Even worse, an investigative report from the House Ways and Means Committee detailed how AARP stands to make more than a billion dollars from the new healthcare law. They line their pockets while seniors face the consequences.
Today, only about a quarter of AARP’s income results from membership dues. The rest comes from for-profit schemes leveraged on the backs of seniors who believe they are supporting a group that fights for them. Nothing could be more wrong. AARP is on the front lines fighting for gun control and death taxes, while opposing school choice. On the energy front, they’ve supported a massive “cap-and tax” scheme that would cost seniors billions on their utility bills and put Americans out of work. The group might be good at providing discounts on flowers and hotels, but it does a lousy job of representing America’s conservative seniors.
Fortunately, seniors have another alternative in political discussions in Alabama, one that won’t abandon its conservative values or the real causes of seniors. 60 Plus plans to be active in political discussions in the state, and welcomes all Alabamians sixty and older to join our ranks. The battles we wage are too important to leave to the liberals.
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