"The newly elected Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, has previously proposed trillions of dollars in cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and suggested that slashing the programs should be the top priority of Congress. During his tenure as chair of the Republican Study Committee (RSC) between 2019 and 2021, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) helped craft budget resolutions that called for roughly $2 trillion in Medicare cuts, $3 trillion in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act cuts, and $750 billion in Social Security Cuts, noted Bobby Kogan of the Center for American Progress.
"The budget proposals released by the Johnson-led RSC also endorsed raising the Social Security retirement age, lowering annual cost-of-living benefit increases, and advancing privatization efforts."Multimillionaire Johnson has also made the outrageous claim that forced births are necessary to fund Social Security," said Lawson, referring to the Louisiana Republican's attempt to blame Roe v. Wade for depriving the U.S. of "able-bodied workers." (-- Common Dreams and Truthout)
"In Jan. 2022, the congressman from Louisiana said "a child in the womb" is a "unique human being with unique DNA" from the moment of conception and he called for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade long before the Dobbs decision in June 2022. Ahead of Wednesday's speakership vote, House Judiciary Democrats posted a video on X of Johnson saying "Roe v Wade gave constitutional cover to the elected killing of unborn children in America, period. You think about the implications of that on the economy. We're all struggling here to cover the bases of social security and medicare and medicaid and all the rest. If we had all those able bodied workers in the economy, we wouldn't be going upside down and toppling over like this." (CBS News)
"The disappearance of pandemic-era supports like the child tax credit, which
was used by many families with children to buy food and brought down food insecurity rates in 2021, played a role here.
"But it's complicated. Some SNAP benefits were increased in 2022 — if they hadn't these numbers would likely look a lot worse, says Chloe East, an economist and visiting fellow at the Hamilton Project.
"This is an inflation story, too. And not just in food prices, which were up more than 10% in 2022 — energy prices and rents soared, too. When times are tight, it can often be "easiest" to cut back on food, says Lisa Davis, a senior vice president at Share Our Strength, an anti-poverty nonprofit. Data like this provides a close-up view of what "the economy" means to real people — as opposed to macro stats like unemployment or GDP — and helps explain the consistently low consumer sentiment we've been seeing over the last year or so." (Axios)
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