Congressman Richard Neal (D-MA-1), who the Boston Globe called “an unassuming everyday guy from Western Massachusetts,” has a unique vantage point on seniors’ issues.  He is the ranking member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees (among other things) Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and taxes.  He assumed the post just before President Trump arrived in Washington, and has become a key point person against a Republican assault on these programs.

Neal is a true believer in Social Security, partly because he grew up with it.  He and his sisters were raised by an aunt in Springfield, MA after their parents died, and relied on Social Security survivors’ benefits to make ends meet and remain under one roof.  “Social Security allowed us to live as a family, and I’ve never forgotten that,” Neal told Max Richtman.

The Congressman is determined that Social Security be preserved for future generations – without benefit cuts – as a singular form of retirement insurance.  “You can outlive an annuity.  You cannot outlive Social Security,” he said on Facebook Live.  “That’s the guarantee.  That’s the genius of Mr. Roosevelt’s program.”  (Social Security was signed into law in 1935 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, father of National Committee founder James Roosevelt, Sr.)

Social Security, Neal says, gives American families a modicum of financial predictability for their senior years.  He told the Globe that Social Security “is the reason Mom and Dad aren’t living in your attic.”

More (National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare) »