Lloyd Doggett Slams Trump For His Claims About Social Security’s Improper Payments

12 hours ago

During Wednesday’s House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) discussed President Trump's claims about Social Security payments.

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Transcript

00:00know that President Trump has pledged to protect Social Security, just as he has

00:06pledged tariffs and they've been on one day and off the next, just as he has gone

00:12back and forth on his position on reproductive freedom for women in this

00:16country. And so why do I question the commitment to Social Security? Because I

00:23think it's more important to look not at a president who is well known as a man

00:29of his last word by what he says, but by what he does. And what he has done is to

00:36appoint a man who has called Social Security a Ponzi scheme, who this week

00:43has attacked the programs that Americans pay into in every paycheck, Medicare and

00:50Social Security, as being entitlements. Yes, you should be entitled to what you

00:57pay into over your work life for your Medicare and your Social Security, but

01:01he says it's a Ponzi scheme and that entitlements are the place to cut. So

01:05that's the first place the person he chose to raid Social Security does not

01:10believe in Social Security. Number two is that we have seen this president come,

01:16not unlike the chairman of the committee this morning, but provoking much more

01:21extended laughter from Republicans in his recent speech to Congress. And what

01:27was this laughter about? All the fraud at Social Security. Can you imagine they

01:32have on their payout someone who has 350 years old, older than our Republic. Can

01:40you believe this? No, you can't believe it because it's a lie. Because Social

01:45Security has had in place for some time a requirement that it doesn't pay

01:50out anything to people over 115, and though there have been some mistakes

01:56made, some underpayments, some overpayments, it has, as Mr. Neal pointed

02:01out, an incredible accuracy rate of far less of 1% of payments that have been

02:07found to be improper. It doesn't mean we shouldn't seek more accuracy and protect

02:12the system, but Social Security has worked remarkably well in the past. And

02:19that takes me to the third thing that President Trump has done that is

02:23inconsistent with his claim that he will protect Social Security and won't

02:28switch his word around as he has done on one public issue after another, and that

02:33is the determined effort of this administration to wreck the Social

02:37Security Administration. Those checks don't come down as manna from heaven.

02:42They come down because there is a dedicated workforce that is ensuring

02:47that Social Security continues to pay out month after month. And so how have

02:52Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk decided to handle that dedicated workforce? They are

02:58cutting it by 7,000 people, and among those 7,000 people are 50 that are

03:04particularly important. The Office of Transformation, as they have called it, is

03:10the customer service office at the Social Security Administration, and the

03:15Trump administration went in and fired the director of the Office of

03:19Transformation. He fired all 50 employees of that Office of

03:24Transformation. So guess what? When the shortage of employees to get the checks

03:29out dependably occurs, people are going to say, well, Social Security is just not

03:35like it used to be. It can't deliver. It's not working. It's like the post office,

03:39which they want to privatize. It's not getting our checks. We can't count on it

03:44anymore. And it's that assuring that the Social Security Administration fails to

03:50deliver that is at the core of the Republican plan to undermine Social

03:55Security. Social Security has been forced already by Republican

04:01administration to serve millions more people with fewer staff. In 2010, they had

04:0867,000 workers ensuring timely and accurate payments to 60 million

04:13Americans. Today, they have 10,000 fewer, and when I say today, that's before the

04:18Trump cuts, serving 13 million more people. You cannot assure that Social

04:24Security provides the wonderful coverage that it has for so many years without an

04:31adequate workforce. I'm hearing from constituents that say this is an

04:35emergency. I'm hearing Republicans like Ron Johnson, the senator from Wisconsin,

04:41saying he wants to sunset altogether. Senator Mike Lee, who says he wants to

04:46phase out Social Security, to pull it out by the roots and get rid of it. My

04:51constituents believe Social Security is one of the best systems government ever

04:55put in place, and we're opposed to the Trump people undermining it as they are

05:01doing and want to get the facts here, which is all this resolution asked for.

05:05I yield back.

05:06Gentleman yields back, and I recognize Mr Estes to strike the last word.

Lloyd Doggett Slams Trump For His Claims About Social Security’s Improper Payments

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