John,

In his State of the Union address, President Biden accused Republicans of wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare—and they were outraged.

Now—after finally raising the debt ceiling in exchange for cuts and caps of essential human needs programs—House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has announced his plan to create a commission to cut Social Security and Medicare behind closed doors.

Immediately after passing his budget, Speaker McCarthy told Fox News:

“This isn’t the end…I’m going to announce a commission. We have to look at the entire budget. The President walled off all the others. The majority driver of the budget is mandatory spending. It’s Medicare, Social Security, and interest on the debt.”[1]

We’re fighting back against commissions that cut Social Security and Medicare. Instead of cutting our benefits, we know that we can expand them when the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes.

ADD YOUR NAME and demand Congress boycott Kevin McCarthy’s closed-door dealings to cut Social Security and Medicare.

McCarthy knows that the only way to cut Social Security and Medicare is to make a secret deal behind closed doors and present it to the American public as a supposedly bipartisan agreement.

Unfortunately for Speaker McCarthy and all those in Congress who want to cut our earned benefits, public polling shows that a bipartisan 76% of voters want to increase Social Security’s modest benefits, and pay for it by making the rich pay their fair share of taxes.[2] But you can be sure that any commission Speaker McCarthy supports will rule out any proposal requiring the rich to pay more of their share. His commission will be all about cuts.

Any cuts to Social Security will not be felt equally. Due to decades of racial discrimination in employment practices, Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) not only make less money than white people, but are less likely to have wealth—and jobs that provide access to pensions, Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) and 401(k)s—thus making it more likely that Social Security will be their sole source of income when they retire.[3]

As we saw with the debt ceiling debacle, the media will give credence to claims of fiscal prudence in spite of Speaker McCarthy’s record of passing legislation that would increase the federal deficit in order to give tax handouts to the wealthy and corporations. The only way to win this game is to not play.

Our allies in Congress must stand strong and refuse to negotiate any cuts to Social Security or Medicare and instead, demand the rich pay their fair share so that we can strengthen Social Security and Medicare and ensure their continued existence for future generations.

Tell Congress: Stand united and refuse to serve on Speaker McCarthy’s closed-door commission to cut Social Security and Medicare.

Thank you for all you do to protect essential programs,

Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, Coalition on Human Needs

[1] https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1663935439873404929
[2] Poll Finds 83 Percent of Americans Want to Expand Social Security
[3] Social Security and People of Color