Mark Pocan: “Thank you, Mr. Ellison. As a leader of the Progressive Caucus, I have been talking about how 107 Democrats in this House…”

“Thank you, Mr. Ellison. As a leader of the Progressive Caucus, I have been talking about how 107 Democrats in this House and the leadership of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have signed a letter and asked the President to not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. So the majority of the Democrats have already signed a letter saying, Keep the hands off. As we deal with our Nation's budget, the one place we shouldn't go is to those who need it the most--our seniors, our disabled, our veterans, and their children and orphans who receive Social Security benefits. As I talked about the realities of that $1,001 a month, as Mr. Ellison just said, when you receive that additional $100 cut, that additional $100 cut is almost 10 percent of your budget. Think about if you had a 10 percent cut in your budget and you're not able to make any more money. At 84, I'm sorry, my mom is not going back to Taco Bell. She worked there in her seventies to continue to make money because she just didn't have it and to have something to continue to get by on. But at 84 she's already had a couple of falls. There's nothing else she can do to make additional money. So she has to make that tough cut. And I would argue that this bad idea that the Republicans came up with and the President included just to get them to the table to talk about the budget, this bad Republican idea, chained CPI, will have a real effect on tens of millions of people across this country.…”