John,

When Republicans released the debt ceiling hostage earlier this year, they agreed to a set of basic spending guidelines designed to keep the government operating in 2023 and 2024. But Republicans have signaled that they plan to break that promise―and potentially shut down the government in the process.

What do these Republicans want? It depends on who you ask. There’s a faction that will only fund the government if they can impeach Joe Biden, one that wants to defund Jack Smith’s special counsel, one that wants to deploy the military at the Mexican border…and there is a faction that wants to cut Social Security and Medicare rather than consider making the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes.

As they did this spring, Congressional Republicans won’t come out and say that they want to cut Social Security or Medicare…they’ll promote a mechanism along the lines of Senators Mitt Romney and Kyrsten Sinema’s TRUST Act, which allows them to cut our earned benefits to ribbons behind closed doors.

Here’s the danger: Because the TRUST Act is billed as a mechanism for “reforms,” rather than coming out and advertising that it would inevitably cut Social Security and Medicare, it could be McCarthy’s last card left to play after Biden shoots down the more obviously extreme proposals. And because of Sinema’s support, the corporate media may embrace the TRUST Act as a “compromise.”

We are mobilizing on Capitol Hill this week to remind our representatives in Congress: A vote for the TRUST Act is a vote to cut Social Security! Sign now to demand your representatives pledge not to vote for any government funding bill that includes the TRUST Act or any other cuts to Social Security.

Thank you,

Alex Lawson
Social Security Works