TCDC News, Events and Opinion

Social Security, Medicare and veterans’ healthcare are on the block for next year—good thing we’ve sent a Democrat to Washington!

While careening towards a year-end government shutdown provoked by billionaire Donald Trump and his shadow president-elect, billionaire Elon Musk, GOP House leaders agreed to pass the current budget. They did so by promising GOP House members that they will slash Social Security, Medicare and veterans’ healthcare as part of a future budget agreement. According to the New York Times, the Republican leadership proposal said:

“House Republicans agree to raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion in the first reconciliation package, with an agreement that we will cut $2.5 trillion in net mandatory spending in the reconciliation process.”

Let that sink in. Because Trump/Musk sabotaged the budget vote at the eleventh hour, GOP House leadership promised their radical members that the budget in the upcoming year will slash programs millions of Americans depend upon. If the next congress were to pass such an egregious piece of legislation, and Trump were to sign it, this would represent a profound betrayal of the American people.

Behaving like arsonists with a burn-it-down mentality, Trump and Musk toy with peoples' lives and livelihoods for sport and attention. Their greed is simultaneously dangerous and pitiful: dangerous, because it puts ordinary Americans' lives at risk, and pitiful, since no matter how much power and money these two men acquire they are never content.

Although the GOP controls Congress, their margins are slim, due in part to our efforts here in Tompkins County. Thankfully, we have sent Democrat Josh Riley to Congress to help hold the line against these two radical, irresponsible, pathological billionaires, their fellow arsonists and their enablers.