Mariah Phillips

Guest Columnist

The 4th district Tennessee congressman has a history of voting against entitlement programs.

Mariah Phillips is the Democratic nominee for the 4th Congressional District of Tennessee.

I’m a U.S. government teacher, which means I teach my students how government is supposed to work. Today, that basically means I’m a history teacher.

While it’s sad there are not many good examples of flourishing democracy today, it gives me the chance to focus on the great past successes of our legislative process. And as I teach my students, you can’t know where you are going if you don’t know where you have been.

Social Security was signed into law in the summer of 1935. The year prior, half of senior citizens lived in poverty, struggling to keep a roof over their heads and food on their plates.

We decided as a society that people who work their whole lives should be able to live out their golden years with a minimum level of dignity and security, hence the name, Social Security.

My grandparents relied on Social Security as did many of yours. It is estimated that 22 million seniors -- 400,000 in Tennessee -- would be living in poverty without Social Security. Most people reading this know someone who relies on social security.

Thirty years after Social Security, Medicare was created. Again, this was spurred on by the fact that most seniors faced higher medical costs than they could afford and, as a country, we valued the notion that seniors who spent a lifetime working should not face such adversity at the end of their lives.

About 60 million families currently rely on Medicare. I say families because without Medicare, family members would likely have to bear the burden of paying medical expenses for their elders. For people my age with college age children, the thought of taking on additional financial responsibilities is daunting to say the least.

Q&A:Meet Mariah Phillips, candidate for U.S. Congress, District 4

Q&A:Meet Scott DesJarlais, candidate for U.S. Congress, District 4

Congressman has record of voting against entitlement programs

While Tennessee families are still trying to steady themselves after surviving the Great Recession, members of Congress like my opponent Scott DesJarlais are pushing cuts to Social Security and Medicare to pay for giveaways to companies that ship jobs overseas.

Big corporations are making record profits and Congress is trying to find ways to give them even more.

This is not the first time Scott DesJarlais has tried to cut Social Security and Medicare.

He voted for Paul Ryan’s plan to end Medicare as we know it and force seniors back into the private insurance market.

He voted to raise the retirement age for Social Security to 70, forcing middle class people to work longer. Time and again, DesJarlais has repeated his attack on programs we have paid for.

Fighting for commitment to senior citizens

I’m a mother of five children. My goal in life is to make sure that my children have a greater opportunity than I did, not to leave the road more difficult to travel that it was for me.

Our children should not have to work longer to pay the debts of their parents, just as seniors today should not have to worry about losing the benefits of the programs they supported for the generation before them.

Scott DesJarlais and Congress are trying to pass the buck for their reckless decisions by raiding Social Security and Medicare.

Tennessee families can’t afford that.

In Congress, I’ll always fight to keep our commitments to our seniors and to extend those same commitments to our children.

Mariah Phillips is the Democratic nominee for the 4th Congressional District of Tennessee. Her opponent is incumbent Scott DesJarlais, a Republican.