Republican Joni Ernst wants to gut Social Security, but only behind closed doors

Joni Ernst, catfood purveyor.

Joan McCarter

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday September 05, 2019 · 3:18 PM MDT

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Sen. Joni Ernst is running for re-election in 2020. She is a Republican, but she will be doing her best to convince Iowa voters that she's not one of those radical kinds of Republicans, the type that is dangerous to their future. And boy howdy, did she just mess that plan up royally. The not-extremist-at-all Ernst told a town hall meeting that she wants lawmakers to "fix" Social Security "behind closed doors."

Republicans are always looking for the silver lining in the deficits they continually create with their corporate and fat-cat tax cuts, and that silver lining is always gutting Social Security. Always. Here's Ernst in the town hall meeting: "There is a point in time when we as Congress will have to address the situation." 

To be clear, “the situation” is the deficit she voted for. "And I think it's better done sooner rather than later, to make sure that we've shored up that system." Shoring up the system meaning what it always does in Republican speak: taking retirees’ money out of the guaranteed Social Security system and putting it in the Wall Street casino.

"So it's, you know, a broader discussion for another day," she added. "But I do think, as various parties and members of Congress, we need to sit down behind closed doors so we're not being scrutinized by this group or the other, and just have an open and honest conversation about what are some of the ideas that we have for maintaining Social Security in the future."

Behind. Closed. Doors. So you don't know what they're doing. Because that's how being a representative of the people works when you're a Republican. Behind closed doors, where the plebes don't get a say. Ernst is on the record since her first Senate campaign, when she considered "privatizing Social Security as an option. […] one solution" to a problem that does not exist.

Republicans are why we can't have nice things. A Republican-controlled Senate after 2020 will pretty much mean we can't have nice things ever again. 

We can't let that happen.