During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing last week, Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) accused Republicans of dismantling Social Security to facilitate its privatization.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Plaskett. Mr. Chair, I move to strike the last word. Ladies are recognized. Thank
00:10you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. You know, my colleagues today have been, we've
00:15all been talking about accountability, and I think that this resolution speaks
00:20to accountability, because many of us believe that the Trump administration is
00:26taking a wrecking ball to Social Security Administration, and they don't
00:31want to meet with us about that. Far from making the agency more efficient, the
00:38Trump administration is undermining its ability to serve the public, and the
00:43primary question is, why? Why is this happening? Why is privatization the goal?
00:53Why are they trying to destroy Social Security? Many of us believe it's the
00:59first step of a long-standing effort by Republicans to dismantle trust in Social
01:05Security slash benefits, and then allow people who are disgruntled and have lost
01:13faith in it to allow Wall Street to take it over. The Trump administration wants
01:20to close Social Security offices slash agency's workforce. The Social Security
01:26administration is already at a 50-year staffing low due to years of underfunding,
01:32and with baby boomers increasing the number of beneficiaries, that's a recipe
01:39for disaster. How will gutting the workforce help Social Security
01:43administration serve the American people? The point is, it does not. That's
01:49the goal. It does not. The chaos and the confusion, the constant stream of
01:56misinformation and missteps have a purpose. Let's talk about that. The
02:02misinformation, a Ponzi scheme. Listen, I'm a New Yorker. I understand a Ponzi
02:08scheme. A con man promises a payout that he can't deliver, collects the money,
02:13and disappears. That's not what's happening in the Social Security
02:18administration, because people have put their money in it, and they are receiving
02:23a benefit. That's not a Ponzi scheme. Repeatedly stating that dead people and
02:30150-year-olds are receiving checks. Every newspaper, every group has said that
02:38that's untrue, including the Washington Post, which has already kissed
02:43the ring of the president. They're the ones also who have said that that's not
02:47true. How are we doing this, and why are we doing this? We want to bring back
02:53accountability. My colleague has stated that Doge only has read-only access. We
03:00seen weeks ago that that's not true. Oh, they just accidentally were able to make
03:05changes to it, they told us later on, and now they've gone back to read-only
03:09access. As a lawyer, the notion that they have can be prosecuted for improper
03:15disclosure, that's if you find that they've had improper disclosure, first of
03:19all, and second of all, if they keep the information for themselves, for data
03:23mining, for future elections, we would never be able to find that out, to be
03:28able to prosecute it, because it's not disclosed to anyone but themselves. Why
03:34are they keeping this information, and what is the purpose of it? Make no
03:39mistake, the Trump administration's actions are to devastate the Social
03:44Security Administration's ability to serve the public, and deliver Social
03:48Security payments, so that they can then have access to 2.7 trillion dollars for
03:56Wall Street to be able to play with. They need more money, because you know what,
04:01we're not addicted to spending, as my colleague said, many people are addicted
04:07to greed. That's what this is about, and the greed happens to be not from
04:12themselves, but for the American people. That's the Ponzi scheme, is them
04:19taking your damn money, and using it for them own self, to enrich themselves more
04:24than they already have. That's the addiction, and you know what, this place
04:30is broken, because Congress has abdicated its responsibility to be the
04:35ones to find that race fraud and abuse, and to do something different about it.
04:39We're letting somebody who's unelected, who's an auditor, now he's an auditor, is
04:45he everything? Is he God? To be able to do what he wants to do with the American
04:52people. It's got to stop. I yield back.