Southwest Missouri Congressman Eric Burlison has taken over sponsorship of a bill that would eliminate the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. During a virtual town hall meeting this week, he called the ATF a “duplicative agency.”
“The state of Missouri has all of the agencies that we need to regulate everything that the ATF does,” he said.
The bill was originally sponsored by Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, who resigned from the U.S. House last month. Burlison also criticized the ATF for banning pistol braces and said such decisions should be made by elected members of Congress.
When asked about Social Security by a town hall attendee, Burlison said he’s opposed to eliminating Social Security, which was created to provide payments and benefits to retirees. But he also said the program needs to be “shored up” so it remains available to future generations.
“To me, Social Security is a forced pension,” Burlison said. “It’s a forced retirement system on all of us that pay into Social Security. To me, it’s government giving us a promise, and if we don’t deliver on that promise, we’re pulling, you know, we’re pulling the feet out from underneath a lot of people.”
Meanwhile, western Missouri Congressman Mark Alford suggested in a televised interview that Social Security costs could be offset by moving the mandatory retirement age back a few years. Alford explained that people are living longer and many are choosing to delay retirement.
Copyright © 2024 · Missourinet