Democrats should shout from the roofs about the threat of social insurance, Medicare and Medicaid.
JD Vance Vice President and Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson (R-LA) applaud when US President Donald Trump appears during a joint Congress session on March 4, 2025.
(Win McNamee / Pool / AFP via Getty Images)
Donald Trump narrowly won the 2024 elections after the promise that he would correct the economy he insisted on the fact that he supports his life. However, in the first address of his second presidential term before the joint Congress session on Tuesday, Trump barely discussed this supposedly fundamental concern – although the economy today is sharply more restless than when Joe Biden left the post.
Compound issues such as rebel inflation, labor delay, and the fact that trade wars have just made Dow Drop 1300 points In two days, Trump instead devoted an exorbitant amount of his speech to advocate the attack on the cut and burning of billionaire Elon Musk, objections to transgender athletes and captures that the Democrats did not want to clap him. How US today title announced“Trump’s speech was all about evading the responsibility for the economy he destroys.” Democratic strategist Soyer Hocket complained to thisAccording to 99-minute address, “Trump spent 1 minute and 25 seconds for inflation and prices and used the whole section to blame (former president) Biden. Zero Solutions, zero policy reports,” while Senator Vermont Bernie Sanders Sanders – Note“Today I have not heard a single word from Trump about the economic reality that stands before 60 percent of our people (who live salaries), or about the huge stress they live.”
But Trump has found the time talkon considerable length. About how he believes that the country’s social insurance administration is a chaotic outrage, fraud and abuse. Claiming that it revealed “shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program”, the president repeated refuted statements and is a direct speech that suggests that millions of Americans should play in the system. “Believe it or not, the public databases list 4.7 million social insurance numbers for people between the ages of 100 and 109,” Trump said. CNN Checkers immediately explained: “The vast majority of these people have no death dates listed in the Social Security database. But that does not mean that they actually receive monthly benefits. Social insurance administrations show that about 89,000 people aged 99 received assistance in December 2024.”
Trump is not a fool. He knew that serious media would dispute the false premises of his remarks before leaving the Capitol. So why throw so much shade on the program he claims? And why devote such a major part of this main speech to the fantastic statements about the “fraud” of the social insurance related to the 150, 200 or older people?
The long -standing social security defenders have a restless answer to this question.
“Trump causes misinformation about social security so that he can eventually justify the reduction of your benefits,” said US spokesman Mark Pakan, Democrat Wisconsin, who is the senior member of the House of Representatives Committee. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich explained: “Trump continues to spread the lies about social security. What he does not tell you is that he is actively trying to disassemble him – begins thousands of SSA employees and shutters of regional offices. Why? To pave the way to privatization.”
Republicans have a long history based on social security, Medicare and Medicaid privatization. But the focus of Trump’s speech suggests that the threat is now much more real and inevitable.
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Addressing this threat should be a priority for the Democrats of Congress and grassroots activists.
On her merit, Senator Ellis Slotkin (D-MI) prevent In his relatively careful official response to the address, “President Trump tries to give unprecedented distribution to his friends. He is hunting to find trillions of dollars to pass the richest in America. And for this he will make you pay in every part of life. Products and prices go up, not down. As Canada will increase energy prices, cars – and start a trade war that will be more expensive. “.
But only in what sounded a little like thought, Slatkin said: “And another thing: in order to pay for his plan, he could come very well after retirement – social insurance, Medicare and VA, you have worked all your life to earn. The president claims he would not, but Elon Muscovites.” About Musk, which became the main engine in the radical attack of the administration on state programs. But she had to make this question much more important in her address.
Sander hit the stronger its live responseWhere he entered Trump for breaking up “a set of ideas that are or are not reasons in reality,” and said, “Trump claimed that millions of the death toll between 100 to 360 years collected. This is an outrageous lie designed to create the basis for reducing social insurance and dismantling. 99 percent of social security checks are coming out of people who have earned these checks – 70 million, or 200 years old or 300 years old. “
After deciphering national budget plans that would reduce Medicaid to fund tax reducing for the rich as “Robin Hood’s principle – starting from the poor and giving rich,” Sanders returned to the issue of social insurance, saying: “No, we are not going to reduce social security. Years, cutting off a hat that allows the billionaire to pay the same social security as a truck driver. “
This was the correct message. But now it must be intensified – rightly, loudly and napologically, the united democratic opposition. This is what Nancy Pelosi did and her coacus in 2005, when Republican President George W. Bush moved to privatization of part of social insurance. Democrats not only won this struggle, they helped accelerate the political fall of Bush allies in Congress. Al Green’s representative, a 77-year-old Texas Democrat, was removed From the House on Tuesday night, after he swayed the reed on the president and shouted: “You have no mandate to cut Medicaid.” Speaking to journalists about republican threats to express it, Green announced“I will accept punishment. It is worthwhile that people know that there are some of us who will resist the desire of this president to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.”
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It should be more than “some of us.” It should be every Democrat. With the help of social insurance, a program that is vital for the vast majority of Americans, under the approaching threat of the network Elon Musk, the rates are too high for something less.
The hard and chaotic second term Donald Trump is just beginning. In the first month, Trump’s office and his Like -Elon Musk (or this is the opposite?) Proved that nothing is safe from sacrifice at the altar without checking strength and wealth.
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Katrina Vanden Hievel
Editorial director and publisher, A Nation
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