ICYMI: NBC News: “Democrats Hammer Republicans Over Social Security As Conservative Candidates Grab The ‘Third Rail’”
August 29, 2022
Yesterday, NBC News detailed how Republicans continue to double down on their plans to gut Social Security and Medicare. While Democrats have been passing legislation to lower costs for seniors, Republicans want to cut Social Security and Medicare.
Make no mistake: The ultra-MAGA agenda is too extreme for America. They have made clear that if they take control of the House and Senate in November, they could put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block.
NBC News: Democrats hammer Republicans over Social Security as conservative candidates grab the ‘third rail’
Key Points:
- “When Blake Masters was running for the Republican nomination for Senate in Arizona, he floated what he called a ‘fresh and innovative’ idea. ‘Maybe we should privatize Social Security. Right? Private retirement accounts, get the government out of it,’ he said at a June forum with the fiscal conservative group FreedomWorks.”
- “Democrats saw an opening in the key Arizona race. The party’s Senate campaign arm rolled out an ominous TV ad highlighting the footage, accusing Masters of seeking to ‘cut our Social Security and privatize it’ to finance tax breaks for the wealthy, while ‘gambling our life savings on the stock market.’”
“The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, said at a recent campaign stop that Social Security ‘was set up improperly’ and that it would have been better to invest the money in the stock market. Earlier, Johnson told a radio show that Social Security and Medicare should be axed as ‘mandatory’ programs and be subject to ‘discretionary’ spending, meaning Congress would have to renew them yearly or they’d end.” - “President Joe Biden took a swing at Johnson on Saturday, saying on Twitter that the senator ‘wants Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block every year.’”
- “In February, Senate Republican campaign chair Rick Scott released an 11-point plan ‘to rescue America’ that requires ‘all federal legislation’ to sunset in five years, unless Congress decides to ‘pass it again.’ Democrats said his idea could sink Social Security.”
- “The Republican Study Committee, a large group of House conservatives, proposed a budget in June that would incrementally raise the retirement age to collect Social Security, based on changing life spans, and lower benefits over the long term by using a new formula.”
Read the full story here.