 Hey Congressman, how do y'all plan on cutting Social Security this week? Sir? How do you guys plan on cutting Social Security this Congress? We're not going to cut Social Security. You're not? Not at all? Well, we're in the age of retirement. You know, that's interesting that you asked that question. People come up to me, they ask if they want to work on it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that's on the table you're saying? Well, yeah. If people want to work on it, maybe you need to give them the incentive to do it. Okay. Yeah. That's the way to solve every one of these problems, probably. I know, I know. And actually, well, at the same time, it just takes that right there. Thanks a lot. You just heard from Republican Rick Allen of Georgia admit that he wants to cut Social Security only a mere six or seven seconds after saying, oh, the Republican Party doesn't want to cut Social Security. That is quite the contradiction. Now he actually thinks that he can get away with that. This is a masterclass in GOP deception. And we'll talk about how raising the retirement age is explicitly a cut to Social Security. But isn't it interesting how his justification there for wanting to raise the retirement age is, well, everyone just wants to work. Everyone's perfectly happy working until they die, which is why it's necessary for us to raise the retirement age. Except remember how just a little more than a year into the pandemic, Republicans were saying that we had to cut unemployment insurance because nobody wants to work. These small businesses can't find people to fill these positions because they're getting checks from the government. So since everyone is so lazy, we have to cut unemployment insurance. But now they're saying, well, nobody's lazy. Everybody wants to work so much. They're so enthusiastic about working until they die. They're perfectly fine if we raise the retirement age. They are so easily so deceptive. And I know that you already saw the video. But again, I just can't get over the contradiction there. Let's watch it one more time. We're not going to cut. You're not not at all. What is an age of retirement? You know, that's interesting. Unbelievable, unbelievable. Now he would argue that that's not actually a contradiction. It's perfectly consistent. And a cut to Social Security is where we simply reduce the amount of benefits people get per year, except no, raising the retirement age is indeed a cut to Social Security and he knows that. But if you don't know that, let Matt Brunig of the People's Policy Project explain it to you. He wrote in an article back in October, the Social Security reform discourse frequently revolves around the idea of increasing the Social Security retirement age, but this discourse is a bit misleading in ways that tend to obfuscate what proponents of that idea are actually proposing. Social Security does not have one retirement age. It has 96 retirement ages, one for each month between age 62 and 70. What people call the full retirement age or FRA is just a placeholder in a formula that determines the benefit level at all 96 retirement ages. People who retire at the full retirement age receive 100% of the primary insurance amount, which is a dollar figure derived from formula applied to each individual's earnings record. People who retire before or after the FRA receive less or more than 100% of the PIA based on how far away from the FRA they are when they retire. When someone proposes increasing the retirement age to 68, all they are really proposing is to cut monthly Social Security benefits by around 7% at all 96 retirement ages. A proposal to raise the retirement age to 70 is just a proposal to cut monthly benefits by around 23% at all 96 retirement ages. None of this is about when you retire. It's just a straightforward benefit reduction being expressed in an opaque way. Now, if that was confusing to you, I think that this chart courtesy of Matt Brunig makes it a little bit more clear. You can see it right here. The earlier you retire, the more lifetime benefits you receive. The later you retire, the less benefits you receive. It's that simple. So they think that if they say cut Social Security, you're going to conceptualize it in a different way. So they don't say that. They don't want the negative ramifications of that to be in your mind. But when they say raise the retirement age, you don't necessarily inherently think about it as a cut when in actuality it is explicitly a cut. This is your money, by the way, even though it's taken out of your paychecks before you get to see it. This is not a tax. This is money that you gave the government for them to hold on to until you're ready to retire. And what Alan is saying here is we actually don't want to give people back that money. It's just so ridiculous. It is not acceptable. But yet, this isn't the first time that Alan has broadcasted his intent to cut Social Security. As Common Dreams reports, Alan is a member of the Republican Study Committee, a House GOP panel that released a policy agenda last year, calling for gradually raising the full retirement age from 67 to 70, partially privatizing the New Deal program and means testing benefits. Yeah. So they've made it very clear what they want to do. They don't have an agenda that is going to benefit working people. As we've seen their agenda explicitly hurts working people. They think that people should work until they die because that money that these people paid into all their lives. Well, those Republicans, they want that money. They want to spend it on things that their donors want or perhaps try to privatize the program as Byron Donald's on MSNBC advocated for. They're just saying the quiet part loud. And even though they still won't say they want to cut Social Security, they'll say everything but cut. They'll use every synonym but cut. But I think it's evident at this point in time, their agenda is pretty clear. And one of the most nefarious things about their agenda is that they know that they can't get this through without Democrats fighting them, right? So what are they going to do to try to get Democrats to acquiesce, exploit the upcoming showdown over the debt ceiling to shut down the government and possibly even default on all of our debt which would trigger a worldwide recession all so they can cut Social Security. It's just, it's so gross. It's so disgusting, but they're telling you who they are. And it's up to you to choose whether or not to believe them. So if you're ever wondering why do so many older people support Republicans if they rely on Social Security? Well, it's because this deception works. They don't realize that these Republicans actually are coming after their Social Security because they say we're not going to cut Social Security and they just take them at their word. But this is deception. It's gross and it's part of the course with Republicans. So believe them when they tell you who they are because they're being very explicit here and saying they want to screw all of you out of your retirement by taking the money that is owed to you.