Bernie Sanders

What happens if those programs are cut?

When I read that on average people in the bottom 20 percent quintile are living on $7,500 a year, that is almost beyond comprehension.

Nobody can say, I believe, with a straight face that that's being done to really improve the accuracy of the COLA for seniors and people with disabilities.

The single thing they were the most afraid of was the possibility that Social Security benefits would be cut.

The alternative, CPI or the chained-CPI or also called the superlative CPI that's being proposed by some members of the supercommittee and has been discussed in the deficit reduction discussions, that alternative simply does not pass the…

We're talking about millions of people living on really minimal income so these are the most vulnerable people in our country who have health care needs, can't get around.

It overstates what seniors should be getting and that we have to move in a new direction to a so-called chained-CPI.

Thank you to Senator Sanders, Senator Paul, and the rest of the members of the HELP committee for the opportunity to share my story with you today.

If those Federal programs disappear it would be very, very difficult.

Seventy-seven percent of older adults 65 and older rely on Social Security and so cuts to Social Security benefits would just be devastating.

We don't understand how the Government concludes that there has been no inflation in the last 2 years, that we're not getting any COLA

We are squeezing the middle class and we are shrinking the middle class, pulling that security away not only from the very poor who never had it but from the hardworking people and even the upper middle class.

So, very specifically, what you're saying is that many more seniors are now taking Social Security at 62 at 25 percent less benefits than waiting until 66.

It's bad policy. It's also terrible public relations. Social Security is a promise.

If those programs were cut it would be devastating for people who are just right now living on the edge?

It is very easy to get up on the floor of the Senate and to announce how you are in favor of cutting Social Security, cutting Medicare, cutting Medicaid, cutting heating assistance, but it may be a little bit harder to learn what the…

I do think that cutting Social Security--that Social Security has had nothing to do with our deficit.

There is a major effort on the part of some in Congress, especially in the Republican-led House of Representatives, to make major cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the LIHEAP heating assistance program, community health centers…

This country, I think we all know, is in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

How many workers in their 60s have lost their jobs, have seen a decline in their incomes and, very importantly, how many older American workers who have lost their jobs are never, ever going to get another job?

I think until we know that it just becomes too easy for folks to stand up and say, 'well, we're going to cut Social Security.'

Thank you very much.

We don't want a national policy that says the longer you live the less purchasing power your Social Security has.

Ultimately these policies are about the lives of Americans and we lose that too often.

Furthermore--and this is an enormously important issue, that needs a whole lot of discussion--does the current formulation for Social Security COLAs adequately reflect the purchasing habits of senior citizens?