Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said Sunday that Social Security's disability insurance was "a form of modern, 21st-century slavery," doubling down on his controversial rhetoric surrounding government programs.
West, asked about Americans' increasing use of the entitlement program, said the uptick was "an unfortunate consequence of failing economic policies coming from the president so that now when people are running out of the unemployment benefits, now they are looking toward going on Social Security disability."
“Since June of 2009 or so, we have seen 2.4 million private-sector jobs created, but we’ve had 3.1 million people going on Social Security disability and, as we said just this past month, the 85,000 went on Social Security disability as opposed to 80,000 jobs created,” West continued. “So once again we are creating the sense of economic dependence which, to me, is a form of modern, 21st-century slavery.”
That was the second time in a week that West employed such rhetoric to describe government programs. Last weekend, the Florida lawmaker accused President Obama of steering American voters “to be his slave and be economically dependent on him.”
Asked about that comment Monday, West said he had no regrets.
“Absolutely not,” West said. “We should not regret telling the truth in the United States of America.”
This post was updated at 11:22 a.m.
