On the recordApril 8, 2019
It is the most important thing we can work on in this Congress for many of the people who are affected. The problem is, as you said, it hasn't been adjusted since the 1980s, and a couple of really important things have happened since then. When Tip and President Reagan struck the last deal on Social Security, there wasn't the heroin epidemic that we see today. One of the problems that we have in western Pennsylvania is that we are losing a lot of young parents in their 30s and 40s to heroin, fentanyl, and prescription drug overdoses. Because they come from good families, their aunts, their uncles, and their parents are stepping up and taking care of the kids who are left behind. I have run into dozens and dozens of senior citizens in western PA who are raising kids on their Social Security benefits. They are working part time, too. They can barely make ends meet. Social Security wasn't designed for that.
