They’re at it again! Once more trying to slash our bedrock social programs Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security – this time via “special commission” that the White House aptly characterizes as a “death panel” for these programs.
It’s time for everyone to speak out against this idea!
Here is an organizational sign-on letter for your group to endorse, from our national partners at Social Security Works. The deadline is next Tues. Nov. 7th, so please act on this request quickly!
Getting a good number of NY groups listed on this letter will help send a strong message to our two key champions in Congress: Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (from NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (from Brooklyn.) We have a unique opportunity and obligation to our kindred spirits nationwide to engage both of them on this matter.
Background and Current State-of-Play:
In the last 117th Congress (2021-22), Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) introduced the “TRUST Act” that would have created a special commission to develop proposals to slash spending on and change the fundamentals of these programs. It would have operated behind closed doors outside of the regular congressional committee process, and then their ideas would have been fast tracked through Congress by allowing only minimal debate and no amendments with an up-or-down vote on an entire package.
The House Budget Committee is now trying to move a similar proposal forward, and the new House Speaker Mike Johnson has signaled that he intends to try to attach it to various spending and budget bills that will be moving to the House floor in the coming weeks. They also have a new tax cut bill for corporations, and want to rescind new funding provided to the IRS to go after rich tax cheats, both of which would increase federal debt substantially.
Needless to say, we health care advocates fiercely oppose this special commission idea, for both process and policy reasons.
Fortunately, the public is very much on our side. Polling shows that people across the political spectrum strongly oppose this special commission idea. Instead, we everyday people much prefer that Congress IMPROVE & EXPAND these programs, and pay for them by requiring special interests, large corporations, and the ultra-rich to “pay what they owe” and “pay their fair share” of taxes.