Statement of Retiree Leader Richard Fiesta on
Confirmation Hearings of Mick Mulvaney and Tom Price
The following statement was issued by Richard Fiesta, Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, as Trump cabinet nominee Tom Price testifies in the Finance Committee and Mick Mulvaney testifies in the Senate Budget and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committees.
Retirees are rightly terrified by the prospect of Tom Price being the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and Mick Mulvaney directing the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
Rep. Mulvaney has earned a lifetime pro-retiree score of just 6% on the Alliance’s Congressional Voting Record.
In May 2009, Rep. Mulvaney voted in the South Carolina State Senate for an amendment declaring Social Security and Medicaid unconstitutional. In May 2011, he said that Paul Ryan’s plan needed to go farther because it did not cut Social Security and Medicare ‘rapidly enough.’ That same year, Mulvaney told MSNBC that Social Security was a ‘Ponzi scheme’ that might not be able to provide assistance to people in the years to come. He even failed to pay Social Security and Medicare withholding taxes for a domestic worker, violating the law everyone else must follow and disrespecting the very system he wants to oversee.
Today he pledged to push President Trump to raise the Social Security retirement age beyond 67.
Rep. Price has earned a lifetime pro-retiree score of just 4% on the Alliance’s Congressional Voting Record. He has pledged to replace guaranteed earned Medicare benefits with a system of ‘coupon-care’ and vouchers that will cost retirees more out of pocket.
Both nominees have made statements about the need to ‘reform’ Medicare and Social Security, including supporting or proposing privatization and raising the retirement age. These are in direct conflict with President Trump’s repeated promises not to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
These nominees should not be confirmed to these positions. And President Trump must keep his campaign promise and promise to veto any bills that cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
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