Republicans Block Larson-Led Amendment to Protect Disability Benefits from Trump’s Cuts

"This bill would give the Trump Administration the ability to conduct experiments or demonstrations to help disability beneficiaries return to the workforce," said Larson. "They want us to give them this flexibility while just last year, they tried to cut hundreds of thousands of people off of disability benefits. That's a deep and abiding concern. That's why I have an amendment that would add guardrails to Social Security's demonstration authority to protect both beneficiaries and applicants from benefit cuts. It would require that no demonstration program could result in people's benefits being lower than current law, and no demonstration could be used to deny eligibility to applicants who would be approved for SSDI under current law."

Read Ranking Member Larson's full remarks below.

"This bill would give the Trump Administration the ability to conduct experiments or demonstrations to help disability beneficiaries return to the workforce. They want us to give them this flexibility while just last year, they tried to cut hundreds of thousands of people off of disability benefits. That's a deep and abiding concern. Mr. Chairman, I do not believe that we can give this administration the flexibility that it seeks to throw people off of their benefits, especially since this majority has made it crystal clear they don't wish to conduct any oversight over their actions at SSA. We still haven't had 'DOGE' before this committee after two bombshell whistleblower allegations that those copied all of SSA's data to a potentially vulnerable cloud, and that a former 'DOGE' staffer bragged about copying the agency's data to a thumb drive for personal profit. Nor did they testify after the administration admitted in court that 'DOGE' staff signed an agreement with an outside political advocacy group to use SSA data to overturn election results. That's why I have an amendment that would add guardrails to Social Security's demonstration authority to protect both beneficiaries and applicants from benefit cuts.

"It would require that no demonstration program could result in people's benefits being lower than current law, and no demonstration could be used to deny eligibility to applicants who would be approved for SSDI under current law. Essentially, these provisions would prevent the administration from being able to abuse this authority and cut people's benefits. Mr. Chairman, the amendment would also require the Social Security Administration to notify the public about any planned demonstrations, and to provide the same opportunities for public comment as under the Administration Procedures Act. This would add much needed transparency and a vital opportunity for the public to voice any concerns.

"Finally, Mr. Chairman, my amendment would retain current law that allows Social Security to use Disability Trust Fund dollars for the administration's cost of any demonstration. This provision has existed since 1980, and its continued use will ensure that [if] SSA operates a demonstration, it will not take away from the agency's customer service funding. SSA's operating expenses are already less than 1% of their total budget. That is the level of efficiency seen nowhere else. Private insurance companies operate at around 20% administrative costs. Accounting for inflation, SSA's administrative funding has fallen 21% since 2010. At the same time, the agency is serving a record number of beneficiaries, more than 70 million, with an additional 10,000 baby boomers a day retiring. We cannot further cut into that underfunded customer service budget for the Trump Administration's demonstration programs. Mr. Chairman, this should be a pretty common-sense amendment. No administration should be able to use the demonstrations programs to throw people off their benefits, and we should keep the agency's customer service funding intact. On average, my colleagues on the other side of the dais have more than 18,000 disability beneficiaries in their district.

"I've already submitted that for the record, Mr. Chairman, and I hope everyone will take a look at their own district. I'm happy to supply them with a card as well on that. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back."