Letter by Larry Bodine, 5-20-23
I just got Congressman Juan Ciscomani’s newsletter, where he claims he is “fighting for seniors.” He says he will “always work to protect Social Security and Medicare benefits our seniors have worked hard to earn.”
I’m 72, and I can tell a lie when I see it.
On April 6, Ciscomani voted to make life for seniors harder by severely increasing Social Security and Medicare wait times for 1.5 million Arizona seniors due to staff cuts and field office closures. Ciscomani prefers to have America default on its debt rather than support seniors.
It’s time we got rid of this MAGA extremist and elected someone honest who supports workers in their old age.
Larry Bodine, LD18 Chair
The GOP debt ceiling demands are non-starters for most Democrats.
— Federal spending: Republicans want to roll back spending to fiscal 2022 levels and then allow increases of just 1 percent per year. Since the Pentagon and mandatory spending for things like Social Security and Medicare wouldn’t be affected, the cuts would fall heavily on discretionary spending.
Democrats asked agencies what they would have to cut under the GOP proposal, and according to CNN, some of the examples were shutting down 125 air traffic control towers, slashing nutrition services for 1 million senior citizens, and eliminating affordable housing assistance for close to 1.1 million families.
There would be less money for Pell Grants that help 6.6 million students and less money for WIC nutrition assistance for 1.2 million women, infants, and children. And 200,000 children would lose access to Head Start and 100,000 children would lose access to childcare.
— COVID relief money: In addition, the Republicans want to take back COVID relief money that hasn’t been spent yet, including money to shore up union pension funds, grants to fix transit infrastructure, and money for veterans’ medical care.
— IRS funding: I’ve told you before how Republicans do not want the IRS to have enough money to be able to audit wealthy individuals and corporations, even though catching cheaters will bring in an estimated $120 billion over the next 10 years. So, they want to rescind the $71 billion that Democrats allocated to the agency to make up for decades of underfunding, to hire people to replace the thousands of employees scheduled to retire in the coming years, and to audit high-income returns. Republicans claim that catching tax cheats is too “woke.”
— Work requirements: The GOP wants to force more people who get food stamps to work and add work requirements for some poor people on Medicaid. The goal is to knock people out of these safety-net programs to save money.
– – Senior slaves: Republicans have proposed attaching brooms to the wheelchairs of nursing-home residents and turning them into human street-sweepers.
— Green energy subsidies: In a continuation of their climate change denialism, Republicans want to eliminate the energy tax credits Democrats passed even though they are in the middle of being used. This proposal is head-scratching since a lot of this benefit has gone to red states: CNN says there’s a boom in clean energy and electric vehicle manufacturing in states like Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina. “We’re proud to stay dirty,” said Mississippi.