MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript: Social Security

Interview

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SCHULTZ: Joining us tonight Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina,
Congressman, good to have you with us. Congressman, as I see this,
Republicans are better positioned now than ever before to go after social
security, not because of only Tom Price`s position as head of the budget
committee but Paul Ryan is the chairman of the House Ways and Means
Committee...

REP. JIM CLYBURN, (D) SOUTH CAROLINA: Right.

SCHULTZ: ... which has an awful lot to do with social security. How
dangerous is this to recipients and to the program as you see it sir?

CLYBURN: Well, it`s very dangerous and I think that all of us should be
aware of the fact that this is a position that the Republicans have had for
a long, long time. You may recall George W. Bush made it very clear he
want to privatize social security, even back in the 1930s when social
security first came on the scene. They were against it then, they are
against Medicare, Medicaid and they`re still against social security...

SCHULTZ: Yeah.

CLYBURN: ... and they want to privatize it, they allow Wall Street to
gamble with the trust fund. We aren`t -- not allow that to happen. And
people should wake up and let the Republicans know that social security is
a safety net that`s been put there for people who don`t have as much means to invest in the stock market but they can put their money into social
security so it can be there for them in their golden years...

SCHULTZ: Now...

CLYBURN: ... this is a very serious issue.

SCHULTZ: Well it affects 16 million people in this country but they`re
targeting -- right now the Republicans are targeting social security
disability insurance.

CLYBURN: Yes.

SCHULTZ: This would affect some 11 million people who received those
benefits. And what does this mean to the program as whole if they are able
to chip away at certain aspects of it? And how big of a fight is this
going to be for the Democrats?

CLYBURN: This is going to be a big fight and we are going to fight. And
going to wake the American public up to the fact that what is going on with
disability is something that is -- sort of a self defuse (ph), they want to
triple it so that in a few years, they`ll look back and say, OK we can
afford to have it. Remember Ed, you talked about this a lot. That`s the
same principle that they used with the post office...

SCHULTZ: Yeah.

CLYBURN: ... and now they`re talking about -- they`re requiring the post
office to pay into their pensions, signify (ph) these out into the future,
and now they`re saying the post office is going broke. Yes it`s going
broke because we are not allowing them to do the pitches like every other
entity in doing their pensions.

SCHULTZ: Congressman, you met with the President today with a number of
other law makers. And the President has been somewhat open to change CPI, is there some vulnerability here in the White House on social security?

CLYBURN: Well, I don`t think so. We didn`t discuss the social security
today, we we`re talking about how to get Americans back to work and I was -- I thought it was a very good meeting, the tone was great...

SCHULTZ: Yeah.

CLYBURN: ... great on substance but we did not discuss social security
today and I think that that is something that the White House is not
focusing on at the moment.

SCHULTZ: Congressman I appreciate your time, I know you got to go. Thanks so much for being with here on the Ed Show tonight. Thank you.

CLYBURN: Thanks for having me.

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