The Big, Ugly Bill will really hurt more than half of our state
On May 29, a couple of hundred Greenville County residents rallied in protest at Sen. Lindsey Graham’s downtown office. The intent: To tell him to vote NO on the budget legislation. A number of people went up to Graham’s office and delivered remarks (to a staffer, sitting behind a glass partition). Some of those remarks follow.
Laura Haight, president, DWGC
You have indicated that you have some problems with the reconcilliation bill that you will soon be tackling in the Senate. But not because it takes money and services away from people in need to give to the top 5 percent of the state’s population, but because you don’t believe it cuts deeply enough.
As the senior senator of South Carolina it seems incumbent on you to consider your fellow South Carolinians when making legislative decisions. So let’s see how your constituents will fare under the major provisions of this bill.
For example, 1.4 million South Carolinians are on medicaid. South Carolina, as you know, has not approved the medicaid expansion which leaves another 360,000 working people without healthcare. Additionally, 1.3 million people are on Medicare. These are largely retired seniors who have worked their entire lives in hopes of achieving a secure retirement. That is 2.7 million people; more than half the entire population of your state who will lose or have benefits significantly reduced.
Medicaid work rules are an insult to hard-working people but OK, let’s talk about that. Most people want to work but a number of issues that regular people have to deal with may make that difficult if not impossible. First, unemployment in our state is at 4.2 percent. 4 percent is generally considered to be full employment. The top jobs in our state are machine operators and industrial engineers, hotel staff, event coordinators, registered nurses, software developers, skilled trades people to name a few. These are mostly skilled workers with higher education or occupational experience, not necessarily the jobs Medicaid recipients will be contenders for. Secondly, South Carolina has the 6th highest rate in the country of single mother households. And 41 percent of the state’s children grow up in single parent homes. That is 384,000 children under the age of 10.
As lovely as greenville is, it is a child care desert with a 4700 seat shortage. And that’s if you can afford to pay what is described as equivalent to “my mortgage payment”. That’s just one county out of 46. This is a story that repeats itself around the state. How is a single mom going to go to work when she has a child at home or a job that requires late day or evening hours?
And while we’re on it, what about feeding your kids. Even with working an hourly, low-end job, a large percentage of South Carolinians can’t afford the high cost of food. The USDA estimates a general cost of between $979 and $1604 per month to feed a family of four. SNAP benefits are crucial to these famililes that make up more over a quarter of South Carolina’s residents.
And what about our seniors? Reducing Medicare benefits will disproportionately disadvantage people who worked hard all their lives. Expensive drugs may not be accessible, doctors visits might be missed, regular screening tests may be avoided, people will be sicker when they finally have to go to a doctor.
Why are we putting all of this on the backs of those among us with the least ability to overcome? So we can give a bigger tax cut to the wealthiest among us. Often Republicans try to sell this to the public with the “trickle down” theory. But you and I both know that trickle down has not worked since Reagan coined the phrase almost 50 years ago.
What does trickle down? Pain and suffering.
“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” That’s a quote from a rich man, John F. Kennedy. Yes, a Democrat. Unfortunately after a considerable search i was unable to find a quote about helping people lesser than oneself from a Republican.
Thank you for your time.
Mary McCarthy, communications chair, DWGC
I am hoping, sir, that the Senator will also consider the impact of proposed tariffs on the 11,000 people employed at the BMW Assembly plant, which you have supported in the years you have been a senator. While your predecessor, Strom Thurmond, was involved in the original work, you were among the Upstate business people who supported it. As you know, the plant was built (and expanded) in a free trade zone, a wise and appropriate plan at that time. You may recall that the site for the Greenville/Spartanburg International Airport was similarly chosen, in part so the BMW plant could provide opportunities for the many people who live in this region and so the products from it could be effectively shipped around the world.
It was a brilliant plan for an auto plant, offering an efficient transportation chain that has been utilized by other assembly plants around the world. For the Upstate, it meant good things. Good jobs, good opportunities for other companies and personnel, and people who would be loyal and faithful to the company.
I am sorry that Mr. Navarro finds this industrial plan too modern for his liking. I hope you will be able to persuade him and Mr. Trump of the value for this setting for BMW and the people of South Carolina.
Janet Lomicka, communications chair, GCDP
My colleagues and I are visiting your office today to stand up for our friends, neighbors, and families in their despair of uncertainty and impending doom. All are affected by what has been happening in our country in the last few weeks, not just to immigrants, but from innocent children in school lunch programs to older retirees like myself, who are concerned about Medicare and our retirement investments. We are turning to our elected representatives, like yourself, to stand up for human rights.
President Trump’s new tax bill, passed overnight in the House in the wee hours of the morning (sounds a little shifty to me) and is now headed to the Senate. This bill could yield billions in mandatory cuts to Medicare. That’s because projected deficits in the tax bill could trigger the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 (PAYGO), unless Congress acts to intervene.
The pending House reconciliation bill could lead to over $500 billion in Medicare cuts from 2026 to 2034, as projected by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
The CBO estimates that the bill would increase the deficit by at least $2.3 trillion compared to current law. If enacted, this deficit increase would trigger mandatory government spending reductions under PAYGO. Medicare is not exempt from these potential cuts.
Most Medicare spending is subject to government reductions, but special rules cap the reduction percentage for Medicare. The Budget Control Act (BCA) limits cuts to Medicare benefits spending, encompassing payments to providers under Part A and Part B, and to plans under Part C (Medicare Advantage) and Part D, (prescription drug plan).
If a PAYGO sequesters were to be triggered, neither the Statutory PAYGO Act nor the BCA includes any explicit directions as to how the two sequesters would be implemented alongside each other.
We urge you, Senator Graham, to study the wording of this bill, not only in regards to Medicare.
This bill needs a lot of re-work . We are counting on the Senate to stand up for what is right for the citizens of our United States.
The American people do NOT want to be forced to be saddled with Project 2025. Any elected official who would dismantle our institutions and enforce such a cruel and radical agenda must not be re-elected.  According to scvotes.gov, as of this month there are 561,062 registered voters sixty-five or older here in South Carolina. That is a lot of constituents watching what happens to Medicare and Medicaid!