Cheat Sheet: Graham’s Record of Risking Medicare and Social Security

Trump’s Latest Threat to Medicare, Social Security Spotlights Graham’s Votes to Cut Billions from Medicare & Threat that Medicare and Social Security Are “Promises We Can’t Keep” 

Senator Lindsey Graham’s long record of pushing to gut earned benefit programs like Medicare and Social Security is once again in the spotlight as Donald Trump makes the GOP’s latest threat to gut those programs. He’s voted for a budget plan that would “essentially end Medicare by turning it into the voucher program,” backed other budgets cutting the program by hundreds of billions of dollars, and after his corporate tax giveaway “trimmed a year of solvency from the primary Medicare trust fund and had a negative effect on the Social Security trust fund,” Graham threatened to put these critical programs on the chopping block — arguing that they are “promises we can’t keep.”

Check out the cheat sheet on Graham’s record of pushing to gut earned benefits programs: 

• 2011: Voted for the Ryan Budget, which “would essentially end Medicare, which now pays most of the health-care bills for 48 million elderly and disabled Americans, as a program that directly pays those bills.” [Vote 77, 5/25/11; Wall Street Journal, 4/04/11]
  • 2011: “Ending Medicare as we know it is a key part” of Senate Republicans’ budget proposal. [NPR, 4/04/11]

• 2011: Voted for the “Cut, Cap and Balance” plan, which “would necessitate deep cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.” [Vote 116, 7/22/11; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 7/16/11] 

• 2015: Voted for a budget that called on Medicare to be subjected to “$430 billion in spending cuts without explaining where they would be made.” [Senate Vote 171, 5/5/15; Conference Report, 4/29/15; Bloomberg, 3/27/15; Congressional Actions, S. Con. Res. 11]

• 2017: Voted for a budget resolution that “propose[d] $473 billion in cuts to Medicare’s baseline spending over a decade and about $1 trillion from Medicaid” [Senate Vote 245,10/19/17; The Hill, 10/19/17; Congressional Actions, H. Con. Res. 71]

• 2017: Voted for a corporate tax giveaway that spiked the federal deficit, “trimmed a year of solvency from the primary Medicare trust fund and had a negative effect on the Social Security trust fund.” [Politifact, 9/5/18]

“Senator Lindsey Graham has spent years backing proposals that would gut South Carolinians’ earned benefits programs like Medicare and Social Security, so it’s no surprise that he is refusing to stand up to his party’s latest threat to put these benefits back on the chopping block,” said DSCC spokesperson Helen Kalla. “Make no mistake — with Medicare and Social Security on the ballot in 2020, South Carolinians know that Senator Graham is to blame, and he cannot hide from his toxic record of trying to undermine his constituents’ retirement security.”

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