Today marks the 85th anniversary of Social Security being signed into law, yet the program continues to be under assault from President Trump, Senator Tillis, and Washington Republicans.

Just this week, Senator Tillis failed to pass a new coronavirus relief bill and instead threw his support behind an executive order that economists and analysts have warned will have “catastrophic fiscal effects” on Social Security and Medicare and will leave them “on even shakier ground.” A new AP fact check confirms these concerns, finding that, “President Donald Trump’s proposed payroll tax cut is a threat to Social Security no matter how he casts it.”

“President Trump, Senator Tillis, and his Washington allies have continued their all out assault on North Carolinians’ earned benefits, threatening vital programs like Social Security that seniors across North Carolina depend on,” NCDP spokesperson Robert Howard said. “Senator Tillis rubberstamped President Trump’s order that independent fact checkers have confirmed is a threat to Social Security, and before that said he wanted to fund massive tax giveaways to corporations by cutting earned benefits. North Carolinians’ Social Security isn’t safe until Senator Tillis is out of office.”

Tillis has a long history attacking North Carolinians’ earned benefits — which North Carolina Democrats have highlighted since the first day of the general election.

• Before voting for the 2017 GOP tax bill, Senator Tillis suggested cutting programs like Social Security and Medicare to pay for massive tax giveaways for corporations and the wealthiest few:
  • “The other thing that we have to do is potentially fund tax reform through opening up entitlements, fixing entitlements, and bending the curve on spending on entitlements. You can’t restructure your way out of an $18 or $19 trillion debt by only dealing with 20 percent of the spending, and we have to have people that are courageous enough to do it.”
• 2015: Voted for a budget that called on Medicare to be subjected to “$430 billion in spending cuts without explaining where they would be made.” [Senate Vote 171, 5/5/15; Conference Report, 4/29/15; Bloomberg, 3/27/15; Congressional Actions, S. Con. Res. 11]
• 2017: Voted for a budget resolution that “propose[d] $473 billion in cuts to Medicare’s baseline spending over a decade and about $1 trillion from Medicaid” [Senate Vote 245,10/19/17; The Hill, 10/19/17; Congressional Actions, H. Con. Res. 71]
• 2017: Voted for a corporate tax giveaway that spiked the federal deficit, “trimmed a year of solvency from the primary Medicare trust fund and had a negative effect on the Social Security trust fund.” [PolitiFact, 9/5/18]

• Tillis suggested younger Americans “may have to wait 6 to 8 months longer” to receive Social Security or Medicare benefits.