Column: Republicans in Congress, cease enjoying politics with our livelihoods

Earlier than the ACA, I used to have junk insurance coverage. With out it, at present I’d be bankrupt or lifeless. If extremist Republicans achieve dismantling and defunding it, I’d be uninsurable. I’m one among tens of millions of People whose lives rely on these bedrock packages now beneath assault.

Below former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), they thirsted to repeal our well being care so as to bathe billionaires with massive tax cuts. And now beneath present Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), militant members of the Home majority need to defund all the packages our households rely on.

With the debt ceiling battle intensifying, Home Republicans are risking a serious world financial disaster. They’re placing our livelihoods in danger by refusing to pay our nationwide payments until their harmful calls for are met.

They’re doing so to attain political factors towards President Biden, and enact deep cuts to packages like Social Safety, Medicare, Medicaid, the Reasonably priced Care Act and extra — one thing 7 in 10 People are involved about.

My mother depends on Medicare and Social Safety. Sometime, l hope to profit from these packages too. Everybody is aware of somebody who lives on their Social Safety checks. What occurs when these checks are lowered, or cease coming in any respect?

However three-quarters of Home Republicans belong to the Republican Examine Committee which has proposed cuts to Social Safety and Medicare. The committee’s “Blueprint to Save America” would increase the ages of eligibility for each packages, and switch Medicare right into a means-tested voucher program.

Home Republicans have additionally referred to as for creating particular panels to contemplate cuts to Social Safety and Medicare. Cuts that may have an effect on my household, and yours too.

We’re now practically 100 days into McCarthy’s tenure as Speaker, and the unconventional right-wing Home majority continues to push their deeply unpopular and harmful agenda.

If we observe the Republican Get together down this path, the subsequent 100 days of the MAGA agenda will lead our financial system proper off a cliff.

We’ve by no means felt the results of defaulting on our nationwide debt earlier than, as a result of we’ve by no means reached this level as a nation earlier than.

The impacts of an financial default are recognized – as soon as the debt ceiling is reached this summer time, the federal government’s skill to pay its payments will expire. And tens of millions of individuals will lose entry to advantages that they depend on to get by.

This hyperpartisan blackmail from fanatical MAGA Republicans is over whether or not the USA pays the payments we’ve already accrued. They’re saying we should minimize the packages tens of millions of People depend on, or else they’ll break our financial system– and doubtlessly the world’s financial system. Will their reckless brinksmanship set off a worldwide despair?

We’re right here in D.C. Monday to ask Speaker McCarthy a last time to make a promise to their constituents: defend our hard-earned advantages and cease enjoying politics with our livelihoods.