For immediate release — This year’s campaign in rural New York has been jolted by an October
surprise from Republican leadership in Washington. They are now openly saying that if they take
the House majority, they will hold the debt ceiling hostage to extract extreme and unpopular
concessions that Democrats would never even consider ordinarily, including restructuring and
reducing Social Security and Medicare.
The Board and Officers of the Democratic Rural Conference of New York State, along with
every single (47 total) Democratic County Chair in the organization, condemn these plans
categorically. “In the rural counties, we have aging populations. Implementing this GOP scheme
would be devastating to rural New York’s seniors,” said Judith Hunter of Livingston County,
Chair of the DRC. “They are promising to use economic blackmail by calling into question the
full faith and credit of our government to ram through measures that they can’t get passed
otherwise.”
Contrast this potentially disastrous agenda with what the Democrats have actually done. Seniors’
prescriptions will be cheaper and the price of their insulin is now capped, thanks to the Inflation
Reduction Act. Social Security checks are higher and Medicare premiums are in fact lower. “It is
clear that only the Democrats are willing to protect the senior citizens of rural New York,” said
Hunter.
The Democratic Rural Conference calls on every Republican member of Congress and
every Republican congressional candidate running in New York’s rural counties to reject
this misguided agenda from their leadership. “Will they stand with their party, or with New
York’s senior citizens?” asked Tim Perfetti of Cortland County, the Executive Vice Chair of the
DRC.
Frank Puglisi, of Cattaraugus County and DRC Treasurer, said, “The thing is, seniors in the rural
counties are already struggling, They absolutely depend on their Social Security checks and the
health care Medicare makes possible. And they have paid into these programs their entire lives;
they have earned these benefits.”
Sources:
https://about.bgov.com/news/entitlement-spending-cap-plans-linked-by-gop-to-debt-limit-deal/
https://punchbowl.news/archive/101822-punchbowl-news-am/
Contact: Judith Hunter (585) 615-2986
judith.hunter@gmail.com