FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Media Contact Information:
Sarah Meredith & Greg Bucking
communications.scdc@gmail.com
www.schohariedemocrats.org
judith.hunter@gmail.com
Republican Plan Holds Social Security & Medicare Hostage
For immediate release -- This year's campaign in rural New York has been jolted by an October surprise from Republican leadership in Washington. They are openly saying that if they take the House majority, they will hold the debt ceiling hostage to extract extreme and unpopular concessions, including restructuring and reducing Social Security and Medicare.
The board and officers of the Democratic Rural Conference of New York State, along with every single (47 total) Democratic County Chair in the organization, condemn these plans categorically. "In the rural counties, we have aging populations. Implementing this GOP scheme would be devastating to rural New York's seniors," said Judith Hunter of Livingston County, Chair of the DRC. "They are promising to use economic blackmail by calling into question the full faith and credit of our government to ram through measures that they can't get passed otherwise."
Contrast this potentially disastrous agenda with what the Democrats have actually done. Seniors' prescriptions will be cheaper and the price of their insulin is now capped, thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act. Social Security checks are higher and Medicare premiums are in fact lower. "It is clear that only the Democrats are willing to protect the senior citizens of rural New York," said Hunter.
The Democratic Rural Conference calls on every Republican member of Congress and every Republican congressional candidate running in New York's rural counties to reject this misguided agenda from their leadership. "Will they stand with their party, or with New York's senior citizens?" asked Tim Perfetti of Cortland County, the Executive Vice Chair of the DRC.
“In Schoharie County, we value our seniors. These actions would be rationalized by the New York Republicans as a fiscal plan,” said Theresa Heary of Schoharie County Democratic Committee, “but they would threaten the health and safety of our elders. This would be a destructive public policy.”
Frank Puglisi, of Cattaraugus County and DRC Treasurer, said, "The thing is, seniors in the rural counties are already struggling, They absolutely depend on their Social Security checks and the health care Medicare makes possible. And they have paid into these programs their entire lives; they have earned these benefits."
Sources:
https://about.bgov.com/news/entitlement-spending-cap-plans-linked-by-gop-to-debt-limit-deal/
https://punchbowl.news/archive/101822-punchbowl-news-am/
For Direct Contact: Judith Hunter (585) 615-2986