This Monday, House Republicans held a hearing focused on creating a closed-door commission to cut Social Security and Medicare. The hearing was for an audience of one: billionaire donor Harlan Crow.

That’s the same Harlan Crow who infamously treated Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to lavish vacations, along with donating millions of dollars to Republican candidates and causes.

Republicans wanted to keep the hearing quiet, so they held it far from Washington DC. This was a “field hearing,” held all the way in Dallas, Texas. Specifically, it was held at Old Parkland, a “business campus” owned by none other than Harlan Crow.

Crow and his friends will do anything to cut our hard-earned Social Security benefits so that they never have to pay their fair share into the system.

Normally, when Congress holds a field hearing, they are seeking testimony from members of the general public. But when I showed up with Texas seniors and people with disabilities, they refused to let us in. Medically vulnerable people were forced to wait outside in 100°F heat.

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Republicans claimed that there were only three chairs available for members of the public. That was a lie. When I finally made it into the room, there was plenty of space. And while there were “no seats available” for seniors and people with disabilities, guess who got one? Harlan Crow.

I called out the hearing for what it was: a farce designed to cut Social Security, even though Social Security doesn’t add a single penny to the debt. I reminded Republicans that the real driver of the debt is tax breaks for billionaires like Harlan Crow. I was promptly escorted out by police

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Michelle H. Davis, author of the Substack Lone Star Left, was denied a seat. So she went home and watched the entire three-hour hearing. Davis writes that Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) ended the hearing by personally thanking Harlan Crow:

Arrington turned, and addressed Harlan by first name, called him "friend" and "great patriot," thanked "his family," and joked about moving every future Budget Committee hearing to Old Parkland permanently.

Davis also found that several members of the House Budget Committee, including Arrington, have received substantial donations from Crow.

As witnesses, the Republicans brought in retired Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who were pushing an infamous fast-track bill to avoid political accountability for cutting our earned benefits. Both this hearing and the commission itself are mechanisms to manufacture a consensus........

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