Republicans now, specifically in the House, always talking about how they're avoiding saying they're looking to cut Social Security and Medicare. It's another argument that Democrats like to go after them on. And every time they say they're not looking to do it, when it comes to actually doing it or not doing it, guess what? They're down to doing it. [00:00:15] Because now House Republicans, they're now emboldened by that guy, Mike Johnson, the new speaker, and they're now coming for that Social Security and that Medicare. And their goal is to eliminate trillions of dollars from these programs budgets. It's a quick screenshot of what Mike Johnson's 2020 budget proposal was [00:00:30] a few years ago. And in the middle there, you're coming after Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid CHIP Obamacare. Of course, they've been trying to go after that since forever. So anything that comes to benefiting folks, regular Americans, they're coming after hardcore. Completely blatantly in everyone's face as people go to these rallies and [00:00:47] support the people who are looking to destroy your lives a little further. So they call for roughly $2 trillion in Medicare cuts, 3 trillion in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act cuts, and also 750 billion in Social Security cuts. Does that make much sense? There's more, though. [00:01:02] This budget proposal released by the Johnson led RSC also endorsed raising the Social Security retirement age, [LAUGH] lowering annual cost of living benefit increases and advancing privatization efforts. They're giving so many middle fingers to you guys and there's not enough people saying, when are we gonna fight back against this and [00:01:20] kick out all these guys who are looking to destroy your life further? Further, by the way, because this is the same thing they've always been on. These arguments about raising retirement ages and cutting Social Security, Medicare, and never allowing Obamacare even being what it maybe could have been. Have been going on for a decade, more though, [00:01:37] as before they got taken to the cleaners on these midterm elections. They then had to pause. But they're coming back for more because earlier this year, the RSC, which is now chaired by Kevin Hern, issued a budget proposal that called for gradually raising the Social Security retirement age to 69 to change that with [00:01:54] slash benefits, of course. And the RSC is comprised of three quarters of the House Republican caucus also proposed turning Medicare into a voucher program and massively cutting Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program and Affordable Care Act subsidies. [00:02:10] In the middle of all those programs, I want you guys to really highlight and think about, I wish Republicans saw this enough, they're coming after the Children's Health Insurance Program. What about the children, the life of the child? [00:02:25] What about when a child is born, and they maybe have a health condition F them is what Republicans specifically, Mike Johnson, who's a great Christian who loves children, doesn't give a damn about yours. Speaking of which, many people have probably voiced that, but do they care? [00:02:42] Let's look at this chart of how much people actually care or approve of the things that they're looking to do. So that first level here of this map or this chart here, the blue, of course, is in favor. The middle gray is neither, and the orange is they're opposing. That first one is increasing taxes on households earning over $400,000 a year to [00:02:59] pay for Medicare. 58% of people agree with that one. Now the next ones, as you can see, all those orange numbers of 70%, 67, 75, and 79%, those four are raising the eligibility age for Medicare benefits from 65 to 67, 70% hate that. Increasing Medicare premiums, 67 hate that. [00:03:16] Raising the eligibility for Social Security and benefits from 67 to 70, 75% people hate that. And lastly, reducing the size of Social Security benefits, 79%. So as you keep seeing people talking about how they're representing you and [00:03:33] get this guy back in office, and you make sure you reelect me, ask them, where do they stand on these? Because when they're asked about it, they go, nobody's looking to cut Medicare and Social Security and raise retirement age. And then when it comes to pen on paper, when it comes to them voting on these things and proposing these new bills, guess what they're looking to cut? [00:03:52] >> Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a sleight of hand. They'll say, we're not cutting it. We're just raising the age. That is a cut. That is effectively a cut because that's two years of your life or more if it's 69, it's 4 years that you're not getting these [00:04:07] benefits that you've paid into your entire working career. And this is something that is deeply unpopular, like this poll shows. But we've known before this poll that this is deeply unpopular, which is really why they'll talk about it, but so few politicians ever want to actually do it. [00:04:25] And that's in part because the AARP is just the most powerful political group in the country. They mobilize voters. They explicitly direct them to action on this. Old people vote more than any other voting bloc and a lot of young people don't [00:04:41] like that, but that's just reality, and they get to dictate public policy. And once that narrative, once that plan or proposal permeates into retirement homes, assisted living facilities, you are going to have hundreds of thousands, [00:04:59] millions of upset boomers and senior citizens. That's who it's affecting and that's who's going to be upset. So this seems like a really doomed strategy, maybe for a quick short term gain. And then the hopes would be that Democrats couldn't fix it because the House is so [00:05:18] fractured and shambles and nothing really gets passed in DC. I don't know if this will happen that they're talking about. It just shows ultimately how callous they are. It's like they saw this poll, and they said, let's just do the exact opposite of what everyone wants. [00:05:33] And that's how we're going to govern this disconnect from public opinion, and public preference isn't just limited to this. We see it to go back to how this story started with our support for what Israel and the IDF is doing right now. [00:05:49] A vast majority, especially of Democrats, want a ceasefire and very few Democratic leaders, Democratic officials, will even call for one. So it's very frustrating. Again, we're in this moment where Congress does not represent the will of the voters. [00:06:06] And then every two years you're just told we'll get out and vote, and by the way, anyone that tried to primary any of these people who don't reflect your will, we just went all out and tried to attack them. So it's just like, what do you do? What are we doing here? [00:06:22] >> Speaker 1: It's a helpless situation. Look, I was mentioned this, you know, my insurance just went up, rent just went up, everything's. State Farm Insurance, I found this out when I started re shopping insurance just for car. State Farm Insurance does not operate in California anymore. They've just left like a couple of months ago because they talked about how [00:06:40] the rates have gone up and just conducting business in the insurance industry in this state have gone up so much because of the computer chip shortages, whatever else, getting parts. If someone has a mangled up, car costs them more. And then if they're raising their rates so much, people are upset about it, and they're like effort, we're out of here. [00:06:56] So the money is running out. We've been giving so much extra money to the rich, the corporations, the Uber rich, and hoarding, all of it. There's this whole thing, I don't know if people know this, there's a limited amount of money. So if we're consistently giving it all for however long, forever, [00:07:14] to the richest of the rich, eventually there's no more left to take from anybody. So we have to start cutting programs that benefit those same people that we're giving middle fingers to, Social Security, Medicare, anything. If we had healthcare system that actually was run by the government effectively and [00:07:30] widespread enough, that'd be on the chopping block too. But instead they always the Portable Care Act to go after there. So you're trying to siphon as much money as possible out of as many areas as possible. So you can make your promises about what you're not gonna cut and what you're not going to go after. But in order for you to go to your final goal, [00:07:47] which as a politician has been paid off by the rich and the corporations, is to continue going after more until there's nothing left. I don't know where they expect more people to get more money from when they've got it all. That's where we're going, and I guess they expect people to just roll over and die. Who knows? [00:08:02] [MUSIC]