During Tuesday’s town hall event, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) discussed his promise to protect Social Security benefits.
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00:00Thank you so much, Phillip.
00:02He didn't know he was supposed to do that until he got up.
00:06I don't know if he could have done any better if he had known it last week.
00:11So let me welcome you here.
00:13There are a couple of things I want to kind of tell you while we're here.
00:17This is what we call a town hall.
00:19This is where you can ask your congressperson anything you want to about anything in government.
00:27If we don't know the answer, we'll get it for you.
00:31In addition to that, I think you will hear some information, pardon the pun, from the horse's mouth that you probably heard on TV or heard on the radio, and we'll give you the facts.
00:46And so let me thank Pastor Lewis and the members of New Beginnings Church for allowing us to come into their sanctuary and hold this hearing.
01:02The first church I came to when I came to Adams County was this church, and I just represented you not that long, but I felt the spirit in this church.
01:20Because I didn't know you had a pastor who could sing, too.
01:25So I had it all.
01:28And then the fact that he rides a motorcycle and he rabbit hunts.
01:37You know, he's my man.
01:41So, Pastor, thank you so much.
01:47So, let me kind of set the framework for you.
01:52There have been a lot of things going on since January of 20th.
01:57So much until, you know, it's almost overloaded.
02:01We've had 120-odd executive orders passed down, sent everything, and we'll go through some of them.
02:16Some of them don't make sense.
02:18And some of them are illegal.
02:21And people have gone to court, and the courts are ruling.
02:25But, you know, it's chaos and confusion.
02:28And we're a better country than that.
02:30So what we're here tonight is to try to share some of that information that would be very helpful to you.
02:40Now, Mississippi is what you call a state that needs help.
02:48But for every dollar that we send to Washington, we get anywhere from $2.50 to $2.75 back.
03:02Now, that means that we need help.
03:07Now, we don't need somebody, somebody can't hear me?
03:21Pastor, I'm in real trouble if I can't be heard.
03:23So that predicate is, for every dollar we send to Washington, we get $2.53.63 sent back.
03:34We need help.
03:35Now, it comes back to farmers.
03:38It comes back to families.
03:40It comes back to students.
03:42It comes back to individuals who need housing.
03:45Everything.
03:46But we get it back.
03:46And so what we've been engaged with over the last three-odd months is a president who's trying to take a lot of that help away.
04:02We have Head Start in all 82 counties in Mississippi.
04:08Now they're trying to do away with Head Start.
04:12They've cut out Health and Human Services area for child care.
04:17And so those things that we rely on are students who want to go to college.
04:25They need a little help.
04:28Not only are they reducing the federal loan programs and the grant programs,
04:36they're also cut out a program called public service.
04:40That means that if I borrow the money and work in certain agencies for 10 years, the loan is canceled.
04:51And they said, what?
04:52So now they're going to cut that program.
04:55That program could be, you could be working in an area of working with the homeless.
05:02You could be working with veterans.
05:04You could be teaching school.
05:06And all those programs, you could get your loan canceled.
05:11So we've had a lot of people get out of debt with public service.
05:17Now I run into people, especially women, who raise families and then go to school, borrow money, and get ready to retire.
05:28And they still owe student loan monies.
05:31Something wrong with that picture.
05:32So we're trying to work through all of that.
05:34But now we have new people in town.
05:41A person who says, elect me, and I'm going to impact retribution on the people who didn't support me.
05:55Now, you know, in an election, you win and you lose.
05:59And in most instances, the loser go back, get their act together, and come back next election.
06:08That's what democracies do.
06:10And so unlike what happened in November 5th of 2020, and the ultimate happened in January,
06:23when people broke into the Capitol, I'd never seen something like that happen.
06:30I didn't even believe it would happen.
06:34You know, I've been involved in demonstrations, but I didn't think people would break into the Capitol like they did.
06:43I was there.
06:45My life was threatened along with other folk.
06:48And ultimately, those individuals were caught, convicted, and as politics go, four years later, somebody else get elected,
07:01and they pardoned all those folk.
07:03And you saw with your own eyes what they did.
07:09And that's not who we are.
07:10We're a better country than that.
07:12And so I've done my public service.
07:16I chaired the January 6th committee.
07:18We did the hearings.
07:19We brought all the witnesses in.
07:21They told us what happened.
07:23We had the film.
07:24We produced an 850-page book that said everything that occurred.
07:31And anybody who disagreed, we invited them to come and speak before the committee.
07:38But they had to do it on the oath.
07:40See, you can pop off all you want to.
07:44But when you come before the committee, you take an oath.
07:47And if we catch you lying, we were going to charge you with perjury.
07:51I mean, that's what the law is.
07:53And so none of them came.
07:55They didn't accept what we said.
07:57We produced it.
07:59But look, the outcome of the election is what it is.
08:03I accepted it, like a lot of people.
08:07We didn't like it, but we're in a democracy.
08:12Now, my choice is to encourage people who feel like me is wait until the next election and you work like the Dickens to change the outcome.
08:26That's what a democracy says.
08:29It doesn't say I'm going to inflict retribution on the losers.
08:34It doesn't say I'm going to do anything.
08:36But that's what we do.
08:38And so fast forward.
08:41Here's where we are now.
08:52Social security.
08:56Like a lot of you, when I got my red, white, and blue card, I was tickled to death because I knew there was some benefits coming with it.
09:12Health insurance.
09:15But more importantly, a check.
09:18In 90 years, we've never had a social security check to bounce.
09:26We never even had one to be late.
09:29And now there are people in Washington who want to convince you that there's something wrong with it.
09:36Well, what you want to do is take it out of a trust fund and privatize it and pay somebody to manage it.
09:46And so when you manage it and the stock market go down, there's a likelihood that your check is going to follow the stock market.
09:54But now, if it's not broken, don't try to fix it.
10:01So that's why people like me and a lot of other folk are going to oppose any effort that politicians in Washington try to do to do anything to social security.
10:16So it's a survivor's benefit program, and if you're like Benny Thompson, whose father died when he was in high school, I got a check from my father because he was in social security.
10:38So it's a survivor's benefit program, too.
10:42So they're not, I don't know any people around here on social security that are not entitled to it.
10:50It's a survivor's program, it's a disability program, and it's a retirement program.
10:55That's how it was set up.
10:57And so I'm going to make sure it stays just like that, and I'll vote that way forward.