BROWNSVILLE, Texas — Social Security is already under attack from the Trump administration, according to Luther Elmore, president of AFSCME Retirees Chapter 12.
“The Social Security Administration now has 7,000 fewer employees than it had at the beginning of the year,” he said at a Thursday rally in Brownsville in support of Social Security. “It has also closed field offices, including the one in Nacogdoches.”
Elmore was joined by other labor activists and Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, who recently voted against the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” Signed into law last month, the bill cut billions of dollars from vital programs like Medicaid and food assistance to help pay for tax breaks for the very wealthiest Americans.
“Medicare and Social Security are not handouts,” said Gonzalez. “These are sacred promises paid for by workers for their entire lives.”
The congressman called the bill “nothing but a cold attempt to strip millions of Americans and thousands of South Texans of their hard-earned benefits to benefit the ultra-wealthy.”
The event was just the latest of dozens across the country where AFSCME members are standing up with members of Congress like Gonzales who voted to oppose the bill and speaking out against lawmakers who voted with the billionaires and against working people.
Thursday marked the 90th anniversary of Social Security. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law in 1935, when the country was gripped by the Great Depression. The program has steadily grown since then. Today, more than 70 million people — one in five Americans — receive Social Security benefits.
But Social Security is under attack today like never before.
Earlier this year, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) unlawfully accessed our sensitive data at the Social Security Administration (SSA), potentially compromising beneficiaries’ records.
And the big, ugly budget bill threatens benefits for current and future retirees — all in the name of giving billionaires even bigger tax cuts.