By Kelsey Givens
On the 77th anniversary of Social Security being signed into law, Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, a candidate for U.S. senator, kicked off her campaign tour addressing Social Security and Medicare at the Pahrump Senior Center Tuesday morning.
“Today is a very special day,” she began. “It’s the 77th birthday of Social Security. On this day, Aug. 14, 1935, then president FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Social Security into law and the man made history for this great country.”
Berkley spoke to seniors at the senior center yesterday morning, explaining the importance of that act, and why today she believes those two important programs are under attack.
“Social Security along with Medicare are two solid promises that we have made to America’s seniors. The promise is this, if you play by the rules, you work hard all your life, pay into the system, you won’t have to worry about living in poverty once you retire. That’s the promise Social Security made with the rest of us,” Berkley said.
“And unfortunately, as I stand here with all of you, celebrating the success of Social Security and Medicare, Social Security and Medicare are under attack by Washington Republicans like my opponent Dean Heller,” she added.
Berkley explained as part of her campaign, she’s running to strengthen and improve Medicare and to keep it from getting cut or privatized, as she said some Republicans would like to see done.
“It’s worth fighting for, it’s worth standing up in front of you,” she said. “I proudly proclaim my support for the continuation of Medicare as we have it now.”
Though there are some issues with Medicare as it stands today, Berkley acknowledged, privatizing or completely cutting the program is not the answer she said.
“I agree we have to make some changes in Medicare to make sure it continues for generations to come, but you don’t fix Medicare by killing it,” Berkley said.
The congresswoman says if elected, she will work with senators from both parties to ensure the longevity of the program needed by so many seniors.
Though already a 14-year veteran of the legislative branch, having served all those years as a Nevada congresswoman, Berkley said she is now running for the Senate because she believes she’ll be able to do more good there than in the U.S. House of Representatives.
She said working in a smaller group of people could make her voice, and therefore the voice of her constituents that much better heard.
“I am the one who will stand with you and fight along side you and make sure that the gains that we have fought for in this country all these years are going to be there for our seniors for our working families and middle class in this country that made America great. That my friends, my fellow citizens, is why I am running for the United States Senate,” she proclaimed at the end of her speech at the Pahrump Senior Center.
And her message seemed for the most part well received by those in attendance at the event Tuesday morning.
“It was great, she hit all of the important points,” Annette Dhyms, a senior citizen at the event, said after the speech. “Who’s going to give me a job at 83 if those programs are cut?”
Kevin Doyle, another senior citizen present at the event, said he was left with a few questions he hoped the congresswoman could answer after the event about the fate of his lifetime care guaranteed to him for serving in the military.
Berkley’s tour continues from here to other areas around the state, where she’ll continue to campaign on her platform to save Medicare and work to improve it rather than cut it.
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- Horace Langford Jr. / Pahrump Valley Times – Rep. Shelly Berkley (D-Nev.) visited the Pahrump Senior Center Tuesday to stump for her race against Dean Heller for a U.S. Senate seat.
More democratic BS. Changes are contiplated to future Medicare and Socail Security. Remember they where founded on the science of 80 years ago that each generation would be much larger than the one that preceded it.
Oh! You mean like a Ponzi scheme?
THAT WHICH CANNOT BE PAID WILL NOT BE PAID
The times are a changing and the best years of America are behind it.
Berkley and Reid? What a team! We need another idiot in Washington.
Wasn’t it Obamacare that siphoned off $700+ billion from Medicare? All based on voodoo economics that there would be cost cuts to balance it out. Later The CBO shot down that premise.
Berkley has sunk to a new low by trying to scare Senior Citizens with her lies in order to win their votes. She has been a Congresswoman for 14 years and is part of the problem. Our elected officials have been raiding Social Security for years for their pork projects instead of leaving it in the trust for which it was intended. Social Security and Medicare are both broken thanks to the politicians that include Berkley. Whoever gets elected will have to try and fix it. It can’t stay the way it is regardless of what she says. She neglected to mention that any changes made in the future will not affect the senior citizens who currently receive benefits, or those that are getting close to receiving benefits. It needs to be fixed so that future retirees will receive the benefits they’ve paid for. Don’t be fooled by Berkley, she’s just another Washington insider who tells lies to win votes.
Dwight…No, the Affordable Health Care Act did NOT take 700 billion away from medicare benefits. What it did do was redirect money that was being wasted in fraud and abuse by private insurance companies and put it into the general fund of medicare. Thereby ensuring the life of medicare for at least another 8 years. It is a big fat lie that he took 700 billion from medicare.
Conversely, the Paul Ryan plan takes that same 700 billion and is NOT putting it back into medicare. He is using that money to give millionaires another tax break.
Once again I must implore my fellow citizens to turn off Fox Noise and learn the truth.
Really? Blaming a news channel for the countries woes, again?
That $700 billion cut to Medicare was required to make Obamacare seem budget neutral.
No one in Washington actually expects those cuts to occur. Obama expects them to be rescinded and replaced by $700 billion in higher taxes [on "the rich", of course]. Ryan expects them to become unnecessary because the medical industry will become more efficient as competition among providers grows.
What doctors and hospitals plainly say is that if those cuts [and the other ones in the farther future that are contained in Obamacare] do occur, they will cease treating Medicare patients.
{btw, the same thing is already happening to Medicaid patients and Obamacare proposes to move a further 5% of the population into Medicaid.}
That’ll be very funny indeed — lots of people with government ‘insurance’ who can’t find a doctor who’ll treat them. that’s the ultimate cost control — no cost insurance because there’s no treatment to reimburse.
It’s amazing how many sheep here get their information, or should I say MIS-information, from Fix Noise and go about retelling their talking points without having the intellectual curiosity to determine for themselves if these “facts” are correct or not. Of course, it IS easier to repeat someone else’s paranoia and lies than to come up with an original thought.
This is the way of politics in Nye County and a principal reason this will keep the name Pahrump on the political joke list.
Great, so we all get free healthcare, but Shelley Berkley forgot to mention she was the one who wanted that Medical Marijuana farm in pahrump that is going to be on the old Dairy site.
so once again senior’s foot the bill – doesn’t anyone remember that Social Security was supposed to non-touchable. Money that was supposed to be left for us to survive (not live on) has been the “lender of choice” for every political party since the beginning.
How many people go from 50K a year to just over 14K and claim to NOT live in poverty? I retired and my 401K based on the stock market and real estate lost more than half of what I put into it. OH yeah that was the fix for pensions?? Now I can live out my life on $1100 a month? how many of you can eat, pay taxes, pay mortgage and pay medications on $1100 per month? You who have NOT already spent a lifetime working might think very carefully about the “benefits” you get from self-funding. When I started working it was a pension at the end that kept you comfortable. They began the 401K somewhere in the middle oh yes and when I started working $350 month was big!! I will die in poverty thanks to stealing politicians who borrow but do not pay back into social security and disolution of pensions into 401K’s. My employer got rich and I got ZIP
So, Tax and Spend, right Shelley? Business as usual? Grow the government? Redistribute income and wealth?
Been there. Done that. It’s called EUROPE. How’s that working out for you Shelley?
My mother, a Las Vegas attorney for many years, loved Shelley Berkley! and so do I! I do not want Medicare or Social Security to be changed so that it negatively impacts seniors. I am just a few short years away from needing those programs. Good luck to you, Shelley!
All you had to do was to mention the word LAWTER for people with a little bit of sense to run the other way.
With less people working less money goes in the social security til therefore less money to be paid out.Wells do run dry !
If we continue with this administration agenda, not only seiors will be negatively affected but the rest of the country as well…
berkley as well as Reid should have been be put out to pasture long ago…
Vote your pocketbook Lisa while the country heads down to a third world toilet and into poverty for our children and grandchildren. Just as long as you get yours. But then you are no different than most of the geezers who moved to Pahrump in the last 10 years. As long as they get theirs.
SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE WILL BE CHANGED. Right after the election and it doesn’t matter who gets elected. Because the math ( rule of 72) is going to destroy both programs as well as many others.
just remember
THAT WHICH CANNOT BE PAID WILL NOT BE PAID
@ Mike Wallace. And I take it you are a born Pahrumpian that is not on any government based program. Self sustaining non GEEZER type of person.