On Sept. 21, the Republican-led House Budget Committee held a field hearing in Dallas focused on creating a bipartisan “fiscal commission” to address the federal debt. The hearing was held at Old Parkland, a private complex owned by billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow.
Members of the public, including senior citizens and Social Security advocates, were largely kept outside, while Crow was one of the few allowed to attend the hearing. The proposed fiscal commission could provide Congress with a fast-track mechanism for cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits, while allowing lawmakers to avoid direct, personal responsibility for any unpopular future changes to the Social Security system.
The Social Security Administration projects that the Trust Fund will be depleted in late 2032, at which point incoming payroll taxes will only cover 78 percent of scheduled benefit. More than 100 labor, retiree and advocacy organizations oppose the establishment of a fiscal commission. Instead, these groups advocate lifting the Social Security payroll tax cap for high earners which would close much of the long-term funding gap. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Alex Lawson, executive director of the group Social Security Works, who was thrown out at the Dallas hearing. Here he discusses the Republican party plan to reduce Social Security program benefits and the alternative solution that would “scrap the cap.”
ALEX LAWSON: The billionaires know that it’s deeply unpopular to cut Social Security, so they do everything they can with their puppets in Congress to hide their intentions of doing so. So their latest effort, they did a field hearing, and there are rules around what you can do and how you can have field hearings. They broke all of them because their goal wasn’t to seek the input of the American people, which is what a field hearing is for, it was to hide their schemes from the American people. So they, with very little notice, moved the hearing out of D.C. so that the people couldn’t show up, but show up we did in Dallas, Texas where they moved it to. Even then, they wouldn’t allow us in. And remember, this is a public hearing. They work for us. Congress works for us, but they were hiding this hearing in Dallas.
And then later I found out they were hiding it in this bunker compound of billionaire Harlan Crow who’s personally bought Clarence Thomas’ vote on the Supreme Court. And we had people with disabilities with us. We asked for reasonable accommodation to attend this public hearing and they denied it. They denied it because this was designed not to seek the input of the American people, but to hide their intent of cutting Social Security benefits because they know how deeply unpopular that is. And so my goal was to get there, expose them and their billionaire funder, the billionaire who runs the shot caller of the whole thing, Harlan Crow. And that’s what I did. I raised my voice there. They threw me out for doing so, but I did accomplish my goal, which was to expose what was going on here in this billionaire bunker in Dallas, Texas.
SCOTT HARRIS: What do we need to know about the Republican party agenda on Social Security? Given the context that there are actuary predictions that the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted by sometime in late 2032, unless new legislation to address the shortfall is adopted by Congress and signed by the president. Tell us what we know about their agenda.
ALEX LAWSON: Many people don’t know this, but you only pay into Social Security on the first $184,500 of income. After that, you don’t pay in a nickel. So for the vast majority of the American people, you pay in all year long. You pay in on all of your income. But for a billionaire like Harlan Crow, he probably stops paying in on January 1st a minute into the year. The trust fund was supposed to last until 2065, but because the billionaires have taken all of the money and it’s above the cap, that date has pulled into 2032. So in the next presidential administration, if Congress does nothing, there will be a 25 percent benefit cut for everyone now and in the future forever. On the other hand, we could just have billionaires pay the same rate on all of their income just like the rest of us do, just like a minimum wage worker does.
And then not only is there not a benefit cut of a quarter of our benefits, but we could actually increase benefits if we have billionaires in the ultra wealthy pay in on all of their income just like the rest of us do. So the Republicans’ goal is to convince people that we’re going to get nothing so that we will accept less than we’re owed. And they want to get people to allow them to cut our benefits usually right around the same amount as if Congress did nothing because they know that when given the honest facts and the choice that Americans face, that people decide every time, “No, we’re not going to cut hardworking people’s earned benefits that they’ve paid into, that it’s our money, we’ve earned it. We’re not going to do that. We’re just going to have billionaires pay the same rate on all of their income.”
For more information, visit Social Security Works at socialsecurityworks.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Alex Lawson (25:52) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. To subscribe to our podcasts, email newsletters, our Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine Substack or social media, subscribe here.
