According to a review by American Ledger, Republican Senator David Perdue repeatedly supported the privatization of Social Security, a policy change that would benefit his Wall Street campaign donors and be a boon to his personal investments.

Between 2015 and 2017, Perdue voted three times to advance legislation that threatened to privatize Social Security and described the program that over 1.8 million Georgians rely on for their retirement as “republic-threatening.” Since entering the Senate in 2014, Perdue has taken over $2 million in campaign contributions from the securities and investment industry, a group that would stand to benefit tremendously from the privatization of Social Security.

Concurrently, Perdue has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in banks and financial services companies every year since being sworn in (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019). As a Senator, Perdue has executed 2,596 stock trades, by far the most in the chamber, including in industries that he oversaw through his committee work and some that benefited tremendously from the COVID-19 pandemic, which he received a confidential briefing about back in January.

Privatizing Social Security has been referred to for decades as the new “cash cow” because it would enable Wall Street firms to rake in profits by charging exorbitant management fees, potentially creating a windfall of billions of dollars for fund managers, investment bankers, and billionaires. Since the 1990s, such corporations have lobbied aggressively for privatization, donating millions to politicians to assert their political influence.

During his brief tenure in elected office, multi-millionaire David Perdue voted to privatize Social Security multiple times, all while taking millions in campaign contributions and investing directly in Wall Street firms, who stand to benefit enormously from privatization. Perdue is up for re-election in the Georgia Senate runoff on January 5th against Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff.