Progressive groups and lawmakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), are blasting the Obama administration for cuts to Social Security and other programs expected to be unveiled in the president’s budget next week.
Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, warned that “progressives will do everything possible” to prevent the cuts.
When the White House released its budget today, it was clear the president hadn’t listened to the increasingly urgent threats and pleadings from the people who helped elect him, as his spending proposal includes a change to the way Social Security benefits are calculated, called the chained CPI, as well as changes to Medicare. The cut is anathema to liberal activists and lawmakers, who have gone all in to oppose the cut, warning Obama would face a “huge backlash” from his own base if he endorsed it. Now they’re threatening primary challenges against any Democrats who vote for their president’s budget. “You can’t call yourself a Democrat and support Social Security benefit cuts,” said Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a group which endorses liberals in primaries, sometimes against establishment picks.
Democratic Senate candidate U.S. Rep. Edward Markey reached out to progressive activists around the country on Thursday, doing a 45-minute phone call with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee… [He] touted his history favoring public financing of campaigns, advocating for net neutrality, opposing the Defense of Marriage Act and supporting a public option in health insurance, and eventually a single payer system.
Last Friday, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced a non-binding amendment that sought to put the Senate on record opposing using “chained CPI” to calculate Social Security and Veterans’ benefits — which would cut benefits for both programs.
While Sanders had originally pushed for a voice vote, he was convinced by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) to back off of this demand and allow the amendment under a voice vote. The Senate then passed Sanders’s amendment, putting it on the record against chained CPI.
While the vote was non-binding, and the lack of a roll call vote means we are unable to see which Senators are in favor of chained CPI, it is an important victory that not enough Senators supported it to block Sanders’s amendment.
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) on a conference call Wednesday, reiterated his strong opposition to any proposed cuts in benefits to Social Security, Medicare and Medicare, saying he is happy to let President Obama know that he “won’t use his vote to hurt the needy.”
Grayson, who was joined by Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA), along with nearly 1,000 media and activists from across the country, has garnered the signatures of 27 members of Congress on a “No Cuts” letter that rejects any cuts in benefits to the social safety nets…
Today’s conference call was organized by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and chaired by its co-founder Adam Green who said that, over 200,000 supporters had already signed the “No Cuts” letter, “a true testament to grass-roots energy around this issue.”
Everything from public education to child care subsidies and aviation safety could be on the chopping block. But a group of more than 20 Democrats are petitioning Obama in the hopes of ensuring the nation’s most critical social-safety-net programs will not be subject to budget cuts.
“Democrats have built the most popular government programs in American history — including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — by working with Republicans whenever possible and by defeating Republican opposition whenever necessary. The torch has been passed to today’s elected officials, and we must carry it forward boldly,” states the letter, authored by Reps. Alan Grayson (Fla.) and Mark Takano (Calif.).
Last week, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) hosted veterans groups, labor unions, and others at a press conference to oppose the chained CPI proposal, which would reduce benefits to Social Security beneficiaries and veterans.
At the event, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which represents 200,000 veterans and supporters, blasted the proposal. The IAVA’s Tom Tarantino said the proposal would “balance the budget on the backs of those who fought for us”:
TARANTINO: And I want to point out that this is the 2nd time in so many months that we’ve been brought to talk about this. And that is totally insane to me that we have to keep coming back and talking about how cutting benefits for veterans is not the answer to our fiscal woes. You hear chained CPI and you hear all these complicated policy terms. And really what you’re saying is we’re going to balance the budget on the backs of those who have fought for us. And these proponents of the chained CPI they apparently okay with that. You know, I’m not okay with that. They say times are tough. You know what, tell me about it. Tell me times are tough. For me and my friends who spentAi??theAi??last ten years fighting war. Tell the Gold Star widows and the surviving spouses how tough times are. Tell the Vietnam and World War II and Korean veterans who depend on their benefits to supplement their incomeAi??becauseAi??they’re still suffering from wounds from their service. Tell that disabled veterans, who has invisible wounds, who needs their veterans benefits, so that they can help recover. We lost more veterans lastAi??yearAi??to suicide than we did to combat. Tell those veterans about how times are tough. I have lost …
Progressive activists fired a shot across the bow of congressional Democrats on Wednesday, warning them to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid or face a primary challenge. Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said Democrats would face a “nuclear war on the left” if they supported cuts to the safety net programs. “We will probably have a fractured party for the next two years” if Democrats cave to Republican demands, Green said on CSPAN, “which would be to the detriment of this president and very unfortunate. There will absolutely be Democratic primaries in the next round of congressional elections. We would probably start right away recruiting challengers.”
The liberal advocacy group that helped draft Elizabeth Warren into the US Senate campaign in 2011 is now trying to make Barney Frank her junior senator. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee sent an email to 25,000 Massachusetts members Wednesday afternoon asking them to sign an online petition urging Governor Deval Patrick to appoint Frank as the state’s interim senator. The group also launched a website, AppointBarneyFrank.com.
Adam Green talked about the work of his Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and the organization’s agenda for the 113th Congress.*He also outlined what progressives would like to see from President Obama in his second term.
The criticism from the left mirrors past complaints when Mr. Obama included tax cuts in his stimulus package, gave up on a government-run option in health care negotiations and temporarily extended Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy two years ago. Liberals said Mr. Obama should have capitalized on his re-election victory and the expiration on New Year’s Day of all of the Bush tax cuts to force Republicans to accept his terms. “The president remains clueless about how to use leverage in a negotiation,” said Adam Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a liberal advocacy organization. “Republicans publicly admitted they lost the tax debate and would be forced to cave, yet the president just kept giving stuff away.”
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee says a majority of House Democrats have pledged to vote against any budget deal that includes the “chained CPI” Social Security cut. The PCCC’s conclusion is based on a count of signatures on a 2011 letter and a statement from the Congressional Progressive Caucus this week.
(Photo source: Flickr user DonkeyHotey)
Defiant House Progressives and progressive organizations have been speaking out against Obama’s proposal to cut Social Security and veterans benefits with a “chained CPI.”
In 2011, 66 House Democrats who still serve today signed a letter saying “cutting Social Securityai??i??s already modest benefits is unacceptable and we will reject any legislation that extends the chained CPI to Social Security, veterans and disability, or childrenai??i??s benefits.”
Meanwhile, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which represents 75 Members,Ai??issued an official statement this week saying that “tying Social Security to chained CPI is a benefit cut and members of the CPC will not vote for a deal that cuts the benefits that millions of Americans rely on.”
Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH), the incoming chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, is on both lists, and issued her own powerful statement yesterday against these cuts.
At the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, we did a cross-check of the two lists and found that 96 sitting and voting Members (we excluded non-voting delegates) of the House Democratic caucus have signed onto statements either last year or this year saying they would not vote for legislation that uses chained CPI to cut benefits. That’s a majority of the caucus, which includes 191 members.
Here are the names of these 96 Members:
Ed Pastor (AZ)
RaA?l Grijalva (AZ)
Lynn Woolsey (CA)
George Miller (CA)
Barbara Lee (CA)
Pete Stark (CA)
Janice Hahn (CA)
Michael Honda (CA)
Sam Farr (CA)
Xavier Becerra (CA)
Judy Chu (CA)
Karen Bass (CA)
Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA)
Maxine Waters (CA)
Laura Richardson (CA)
Linda SA?nchez (CA)
Jared Polis (CO)
Rosa DeLauro (CT)
Corrine Brown (FL)
Frederica Wilson (FL)
Hank Johnson (GA)
John Lewis (GA)
Mazie Hirono (HI)
Bobby Rush (IL)
Luis Gutierrez (IL)
Danny Davis (IL)
Jan Schakowsky (IL)
AndrAi?? Carson (IN)
Dave Loebsack (IA)
Chellie Pingree (ME)
Donna Edwards (MD)
Elijah Cummings (MD)
John Olver (MA)
Jim McGovern (MA)
Barney Frank (MA)
John Tierney …
Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD)
In July 2011, during the debt ceilingAi??negotiations, Ai??70 House Democrats signed a letter saying the following: “Cutting Social Security’s already modest benefits is unacceptable and we will reject any legislation that extends the chained CPI to Social Security, veterans and disability, or children’s benefits.”
Here’s a copy of that letter, which was spearheaded by Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD):
SS Medicare Letter to Obama July 2011
Here are the 66 Democrats who signed that letter who still serve:
Reps. JoeAi??Baca (CA), Robert Brady (PA) , Rep. Corrine Brown (FL), G.K. Butterfield (NC), Andre Carson (IN), Kathy Castor (FL), Judy Chu (CA), Donna Christensen (VI), Yvette Clarke (NY), Emanuel Cleaver (MO), Mark Critz (PA), John Conyers (MI), Elijah Cummings (MD), Danny Davis (IL), Peter DeFazio (OR), Rosa DeLauro (CT), Ted Deutch (FL), Keith Ellison (MN), Eliot Engel (NY), Ai??Sam Farr (CA), Barney Frank (MA), Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI), Alcee Hastings (FL), Maurice Hinchey (NY), Mike Honda (CA), Rush Holt (NJ), Al Green (FL), Gene Green (TX), Raul Grijalva (AZ), Luis Gutierrez (IL), Dale Kildee (MI), Dennis Kucinich (OH), Barbara Lee (CA), John Lewis (IL), Carolyn Maloney (NY), Jim McDermott (WA), Ed Markey (MA), Doris Matsui (DA), Carolyn McCarthy (NY), Jim McGovern (MA), Brad Miller (NC), Gwen Moore (WI), Jerry Nadler (NY), Grace Napolitano (CA), Elanor Holmes Norton (DC), John Olver (MA), Frank Pallone (NJ), Jim Pascrell (NJ), Chellie Pingree (ME), Nick Rahall (WV), Silvestre Reyes (TX), Laura Richardson (CA), Steve Rothman (NJ), Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA), Bobby Rush (IL), Gregorio Sablan (NMI), Jan Schakowsky (IL), BobbyAi?? Scott (VA), Louise …
Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA)
President Obama has agreed to a fiscal deal that enacts a so-called ai???Chained CPIai??? to calculate Social Security and veteransai??i?? benefits. Under this plan, beneficiaries would get cuts in their cost of living adjustments.Ai??Last night, a defiant Congressional Progressive Caucus ai??i?? with 75 Members in the House ai??i??Ai??vowed to voteAi??against such a deal, calling it a definite ai???benefit cut.ai???
It’s important to remember that leading House Democrats — Chair of the House Democratic Caucus Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA) and Vice Caucus Chair Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) — actually denounced chained CPI in 2011 during an event on June 22 in HVC Studio A of the Capitol Visitors Center.
Becerra [Federal News Service, 6/22/11]:
So at a time when seniors are depending more and more on Social Security, at a time that their basic income goes primarily towards basic needs, the COLA change through the chain CPI would take away more of their Social Security benefits. And so it’s not only a backdoor way to make cuts to Social Security, it’s an underhanded way to make cuts to Social Security.Ai??And when you put it in the context of deficit reduction, when Social Security has contributed not a dime to the deficit, it’s unconscionable. And so we’re here to say, hands off of everyone’s Social Security. Let’s strengthen it, not privatize it.
Crowley [Federal News Service, 6/22/11]:
I hear about it every day when I’m home from the seniors and veterans that I represent. And now, we’re seeing a push by some in Washington to put a permanent cut on any possible future cost-of- living increase for Social Security and veterans’ benefits through an only-in-Washington idea known as chained CPI. This should — more accurately called the “chainsaw” CPI. Now, this may all sound like funny …
For Obama, these voices are significant. He is losing the allies who should be in the forefront of the fight to seal any deal he reaches with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Without a solid base of Democratic votes in the House and Senate for it, this deal won’t be done. And make no mistake: a fiscal-cliff compromise that compromises Social Security should not be done. Period. That’s the message coming from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which as usual has moved rapidly — and effectively — to build mass opposition to a cut that will only happen if Americans are unaware of the threat.
Outside liberal groups are keeping up pressure on Democrats to ward off a deal that includes any changes to Social Security. Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, threatened primary challenges for Democratic lawmakers flirting with supporting the CPI change and warned that progressives were already getting mobilized to lobby members. “People are under the kind of delusional idea that the American public would applaud cutting their own grandparents’ Social Security benefits because compromise is just that important,” Green said in an interview. “Well, it’s not. There’s a good compromise and a bad compromise.”
The liberal Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) on Tuesday morning circulated criticism from a handful of progressive players, signifying that politicians and interest groups on the left, who have decried any cuts to Social Security or Medicare, will coordinate at least some degree of pushback against this movement toward a compromise.