Rules Committee Republicans Block Larson Amendment to Enhance Social Security and Stop Taxing Benefits from Advancing to House Floor
Washington, D.C. - Today, House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Ranking Member John B. Larson (CT-01) presented his amendment to enhance Social Security and stop taxing benefits before the Rules Committee, which was blocked by House Republicans from advancing to the House floor.
The Rules Committee convened in a rare 1:00 AM session that lasted almost 22 hours, to consider Republican legislation that would pay for tax cuts for billionaires by cutting Medicaid and slashing SNAP nutrition benefits. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates nearly 14 million Americans will lose their health coverage because of this bill, including 156,000 Connecticut residents.
You can view Rep. Larson's full remarks here.
“If Republicans can convene the Rules Committee at one o’clock in the morning to rush through their tax cuts for billionaires, Congress can act to enhance Social Security for the first time in more than 50 years,” said Larson. “Under their bill, 14 million Americans would be kicked off their health care plan and 24 million would be stuck paying taxes on their Social Security, reneging on President Trump’s promise. My amendment would end taxes on benefits for everyone and enhance Social Security so no one can work all their life and retire into poverty. Most importantly, we pay for it by ensuring the wealthy pay into Social Security just like everyone else. Republicans blocked it from even being considered by the full House – remaining laser-focused on their mission to cut taxes for billionaires and CEOs. Democrats will keep fighting to not just protect Americans’ hard-earned benefits but strengthen them and defeat the Republicans’ billionaires-first bill.”
Ranking Member Larson’s amendment would:
Provide an across-the-board benefit increase for all Social Security beneficiaries
End taxation of Social Security benefits
Ensure no one who has worked their entire life can retire into poverty
Eliminate the five-month waiting period for Social Security disability benefits
End the ‘disability benefit cliff’ so disability beneficiaries can work without risking their entire benefit
Lift the FICA earnings cap on income above $400,000 so millionaires and billionaires pay into Social Security throughout the year
Close the net investment income loophole used by the wealthy to avoid paying into Social Security
See a full transcript of Ranking Member Larson’s testimony before the Rules Committee below:
“Thank you, Madame Chair and let me thank you for your perseverance, your patience, and your practical application of getting through this process. Let me also commend my colleagues on the Democratic side for their persistence in making the public fully aware that all legislation has consequences.
“I have an amendment that's focus is on economic development, it’s on tax cuts, and just happens to be the nation’s number one anti-poverty program for the elderly and the nation’s number one anti-poverty program for children. And Congress has not acted to enhance this program in over fifty years. Richard Nixon was President of the United States the last time that Social Security was enhanced. And yet it is Social Security that at its heart demonstrates the genius of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and also the Congress to put in place a plan that would be the safety net for entrepreneurialism and capitalism. How? By making sure that every Congressional District and the people within those districts in difficult times, whether in retirement or whether through no fault of their own there were layoffs, that people were are able to continue to receive a payment. No one gets wealthy on Social Security. You all know that, but it is able to sustain families during difficult times. And the shame here is that these are very difficult times, in post-pandemic and now in this inflationary period we’re in now, and this global inflationary period we are going through as well.
“Peoples' kitchen table discussions are, ‘how we are going to do this?’ And here is the startling fact, and I think every Member probably knows this, on both sides of the aisle, 10,000 Baby Boomers a day become eligible for Social Security, on average, and you’re blessed here in this committee, and especially on the Republican side, the average Social Security amount of money that goes to every district monthly is in excess of $200 million, and in the case here, it is over $300 million. That's the good news. The bad news is it hasn’t been adjusted in more than 50 years. Imagine how people in all of our districts feel when they get these statistics.
“Now I give every Member of Congress a little card and on that card, it demonstrates not only how much people get in retirement, but what spouses, what widows, what dependent children, and [what individuals with disabilities receive], another thing we don’t mention enough about Social Security.
“I come from an insurance center of the world, and, you know, the administrative costs for insurance companies run anywhere between 16% and 28%, and we have some damn good insurance companies in Hartford, Connecticut. But Social Security manages the largest insurance program in the country, maybe the world, and it does so with under 1% administrative costs. And to see the closing of regional offices, the shutting down of work so that people aren’t able to actually talk to human beings. You are all good people. You all have the same kind of constituents that we have.
“I know Madame Chairman, that people like us, or at least my age, want to be able to talk to a human being, don’t want to go through press button number one, press button number two, press button number three and you’re lucky if you ever get to talk to anybody. So here is something that has to be enhanced, that improves the whole economy, gives a tax cut, a real tax cut, to more than 23 million Americans. There should be no double taxation of Social Security, and yet there is. So, I implore and ask your help to pass this amendment.”