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For Immediate Release
July, 20 2020, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Linda Benesch, 240-342-4301,
Congressional Republicans Join Trump's Scheme to Raid Social Security
The following is a statement from Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works,
WASHINGTON
The following is a statement from Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works, in response to Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) revealing that Congressional Republicans plan to demand a cut in payroll contributions, Social Security's dedicated funding:
"Republican activist Grover Norquist once famously stated that he wants to reduce government to the size where he can 'drown it in the bathtub.' That's exactly what Donald Trump, now joined by Congressional Republicans, is trying to do to our Social Security system:
Step One: Slash payroll contributions.
Step Two: Slash Benefits.
Step Three: Drown Social Security in the bathtub.
President Roosevelt designed Social Security as an earned benefit. He astutely included contributions by workers 'so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits.' He added, 'With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.'
The damn politicians have tried and failed for decades to go after Social Security directly. Now, they're seeking to raid the system's dedicated revenue as a pathway to destroying it.
If the money lost in payroll contributions is replaced with general revenue, Social Security will still be a target. Currently, Social Security doesn't add a penny to the deficit. Raiding its dedicated revenue is a set up to the claim that it must be cut in the name of reining in the debt!
McCarthy's statement today means that every Republican member of Congress supports defunding Social Security -- unless they quickly and explicitly denounce their party's plan to raid our earned benefits. The American people are eagerly waiting to hear what Republicans like Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO), Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) have to say."
Social Security Works' mission is to: Protect and improve the economic security of disadvantaged and at-risk populations; Safeguard the economic security of those dependent, now or in the future, on Social Security; and Maintain Social Security as a vehicle of social justice.
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Georgia officials fired everyone on the Maternal Mortality Review Committee after ProPublicareported that the panel found the deaths of two women whose care was restricted by the state's abortion ban were preventable, the news outlet revealed Thursday.
ProPublica first exposed the committee's findings for Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller in September, sparking a flood of criticism directed at abortion care restrictions and the primarily Republican politicians who impose them. Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who was running for the White House, even traveled to Atlanta to pay tribute to the two women.
"They didn't like that reporters found out that the state's ban killed two women."
Thurman and Miller's stories, as the news outlet acknowledged Thursday, "became a central discussion" in not only the presidential contest—ultimately won by Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who has bragged about the role he played in reversing Roe v. Wade—but also ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights in 10 states, seven of which succeeded.
In a November 8 letter obtained by ProPublica, Georgia Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey wrote that an "investigation was unable to uncover which individual(s) disclosed confidential information" despite state law and confidential agreements signed by panel members barring such disclosures.
Toomey explained that the committee was immediately "disbanded," a replacement panel will be formed through a new application process, and additional procedures are under consideration regarding confidentiality, oversight, and organizational structure.
ProPublica reported that the office of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp—who appointed Toomey—declined to comment and referred questions to the health department, whose spokesperson also declined to comment, saying that the letter, "speaks for itself."
As the outlet detailed:
Reproductive rights advocates say Georgia's decision to dismiss and restructure its committee also could have a chilling effect on the committee's work, potentially dissuading its members from delving as deeply as they have into the circumstances of pregnant women's deaths if it could be politically sensitive.
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Other reproductive rights advocates and journalists were similarly critical in response to the new reporting from ProPublica—which has also covered the deaths of two women in Texas: Josseli Barnica and Nevaeh Crain.
"Women died because they received no life-saving care as they were having miscarriages in Georgia and the state responded by simply eradicating the committee that investigated deaths of pregnant women," declared writer and organizer Hannah Riley.
The National Institute for Reproductive Health, an advocacy group, asserted that "when anti-abortion politicians find FACTS inconvenient, they dismantle the systems meant to hold them accountable."
New York magazine senior correspondent Irin Carmon, whose forthcoming book is about pregnancy in the United States, similarly said: "This is how they cover up what abortion bans do—fire anyone who helps tell the stories of harm. Everyone who is or can be pregnant will pay the price."
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The recommendations for charges came after the arrest of four members of the military and a federal police officer earlier this week over an alleged plot to kill Lula and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin before they were sworn in, as well as Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Police said that "a detailed operational plan called 'Green and Yellow Dagger' was identified, which would be executed on December 15, 2022, aimed at the murder of the elected candidates for president and vice president."
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Summarizing a conversation with a columnist, Bolsonaro said on social media Thursday that "we have to see what is in this indictment by the Federal Police. I will wait for the lawyer." He also said that Moraes "does everything that the law does not say" and "I cannot expect anything from a team that uses creativity to denounce me."
Bolsonaro has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, including with two other pending cases: In March he was indicted for allegedly falsifying his Covid-19 vaccination data and in July he was indicted for crimes including embezzlement related to alleged misappropriation of diamond jewelry and other state property. Those indictments came after Brazil's highest election authority last year barred him from running for any public office for eight years over his lies about the 2022 contest.
In addition to Bolsonaro, the other three dozen people indicted on Thursday include "some of the most important members of his far-right administration," The Guardianreported. As the newspaper detailed:
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"The clock is ticking. COP29 is now down to the wire," said UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday, just a day before the two-week conference is set to conclude.
Finance has been a major focus of this year's summit. Under the 20125 Paris Agreement, countries are supposed to come up with a "new collective quantified goal"—or NCQG in COP jargon—that will govern how much money from rich countries will be transferred to developing countries in order to help the latter cut their emissions and adapt to climate change.
No equivalent climate finance arrangement has been agreed to before, though countries at the summit broadly agree that richer countries, who are responsible for much of historic CO2 emissions, should help poorer and more climate-vulnerable nations deal with natural disasters and their transition to green energy.
The draft text that dropped early Thursday, however, was received poorly.
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Instead of specifying how much annually should be funneled towards developing countries via climate finance, the NCQG draft text displayed "X" in place of any actual figures or monetary commitments.
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Without addressing these concerns, advocates of a meaningful deal at the conference say COP29 is headed for failure.
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"The time to course correct is now—the European Union and other rich countries must stop playing poker with the planet and humankind's future at stake," Sieber added. "It's time to put their cards on the table and commit real, transformative funding—no more excuses, no more delays, it's time."
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