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John,
Since it became clear that Republicans would hold the majority in the House of Representatives, we’ve warned that Democrats could not trust them with the bare minimum of governing responsibility: Preventing the United States from careening into default.
Yesterday, extreme elements of the Republican Party wouldn’t even allow the newly elected members of Congress to be sworn in. This chaos is a stark warning about what could happen when Congress must raise the statutory debt limit later this year.
Social Security Works is keeping the pressure on President Biden and Democrats: Don’t negotiate with hostage-taking Republicans. Protecting the United States’s credit is not a concession. Donate $7 to protect our Social Security system from Republicans!
We’re ready to run billboard trucks in districts of hostage-takers that make it clear: Taking the debt limit hostage is an attack on our Social Security system.
Before the election, Republican leaders Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell both stated their intentions to hold the debt limit hostage, hoping President Biden would agree to cut Social Security and Medicare as a ransom for keeping the American economy from collapsing.
Speaker-hopeful Kevin McCarthy’s plight is clear: He went hat in hand to the most extreme members of his Caucus, making concession after concession but getting nowhere. That’s because the extremists don’t want anything in particular; they just want to crush our ability to govern so that their Wall Street paymasters can continue to hoard their wealth and crush their workers.
If President Biden agrees to negotiate over the debt ceiling with these extremists, Republicans will simply take and take and take until there’s nothing left―and they may never vote to increase the debt limit anyway because the thing they really want is to hurt the President.
We saw this dynamic play out during the Obama administration when Tea Party Republicans (with Kevin McCarthy acting as Republican Whip) nearly got President Obama to agree to Social Security cuts during debt limit negotiations. Obama learned his lesson, and after our country’s credit rating was downgraded, he refused to negotiate further. The debt limit was raised without concessions ever since.
President Biden must learn President Obama’s lesson: Don’t negotiate with economic terrorists. We saved Social Security from Republicans then and are ready to do it again. Donate $7 to protect Social Security from Republicans!
Whether the House is ultimately led by Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Steve Scalise, Fred Upton, or someone else, that Speaker will be in thrall to the most extreme members of the Republican caucus. The one thing they can all agree on is destroying Social Security and Medicare. Together, we will stop them.
Thanks,
Michael Phelan
Social Security Works
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