During a press conference Tuesday hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus, U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, AL-07, spoke out against the Trump-Musk scheme to break Social Security.
“It is an honor for me to get into some Good Trouble by joining my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus for standing up for Social Security.
“More than 160,000 Alabamians, my constituents, rely on Social Security for their benefits. They are seniors. They are children. They are widows. They are people with disabilities. And the list goes on and on.
“For so many, Social Security is not just a benefit, it is a lifeline. Without it, they would have nothing, no source of income at all in their latter years.
“What this administration is doing to dismantle Social Security is shameful. It wasn’t enough for Donald Trump and Elon Musk to go after our health care. It wasn’t enough for them to fire thousands of employees from the VA. Now they want to go after Social Security benefits that our seniors have earned after a lifetime of work, all so they can give trillion-dollar tax cuts to the wealthy and the well-connected.
“So let us be clear. Social Security is not an entitlement. It is an earned benefit. Trump and Musk, they understand that it is wrong and unpopular to summarily slash Social Security. So what are they doing? They’re going after the system itself. They’re trying to break the system itself.
“That is why they fired thousands of Social Security employees. That is why they broke the agency’s website. That is why they are closing Social Security field offices all across the nation. And that is why they are forcing seniors to make claims in person rather than by phone, because the phone systems go down.
“Elon Musk may say that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, but for the people that I represent, the people that we in the Congressional Black Caucus represent, it is the difference between putting food on the table, medicine in the cabinet, and gas in the car.
“Seventy-seven percent of the current retirees rely on Social Security to make ends meet. For so many, this is simply unacceptable. That is why House Democrats and my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus, we will always fight to protect Social Security benefits.
“It’s time for the House Republicans to put their constituents first and join us in protecting Social Security.
“So to Trump and to Elon Musk, I have five words. Hands off our Social Security! Hands off our Social Security! Hands off our Social Security!
“We in the Congressional Black Caucus stand strong and united with the American people in protecting Social Security,” Rep. Sewell concluded.
A video of her remarks made can be seen here.
