What Every GOP Senator Needs to Answer: Do You Agree With President Trump’s Plan to “Look At” Medicare and Social Security Cuts?

HuffPost: “Republicans Reignited Talks About Entitlement Changes After Passing a $1 Trillion Tax Cut in 2017, Which Largely Benefited Corporations and the Very Wealthy”

Not one Senate Republican has stood up to President Trump’s plan to “look at” cuts to Medicare and potentially other earned benefits like Social Security – a new threat to Americans’ retirement security that the president said he’ll seek if Republicans win in 2020 in an interview this week.

Despite promises it would pay for itself, Republicans’ corporate tax giveaway has sent the deficit surging and has also “trimmed a year of solvency from the primary Medicare trust fund and had a negative effect on the Social Security trust fund.”

In addition to voting for the toxic tax law, Senators like Cory Gardner, Susan Collins, Martha McSally and Thom Tillis have also supported GOP budgets that would put these earned benefits on the chopping block. Senator Joni Ernst has said she wants to discuss cuts to Social Security “behind closed doors so we’re not being scrutinized.” Senator David Perdue introduced his own plan to jeopardize Medicare and Social Security funding, while Senator Lindsey Graham has said these programs are “promises we can’t keep.”

“Republican Senators have voted to undermine Medicare and Social Security while passing on tax breaks to their wealthy special interest donors that are adding nearly $2 trillion to the national debt,” said DSCC spokesperson Izzi Levy. “With these escalating attacks on earned benefits in Washington, it’s clear that voters can’t trust Republican Senators to stand up for protecting these critical retirement security programs.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

New York Times: Trump Opens Door to Cuts to Medicare and Other Entitlement Programs

By Alan Rappeport and Maggie Haberman

January 22, 2020

Key Points:

• President Trump suggested on Wednesday that he would be willing to consider cuts to social safety-net programs like Medicare to reduce the federal deficit if he wins a second term, an apparent shift from his 2016 campaign promise to protect funding for such entitlements.

• The president made the comments on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Despite promises to reduce the federal budget deficit, it has ballooned under Mr. Trump’s watch as a result of sweeping tax cuts and additional government spending.

• Asked in an interview with CNBC if cuts to entitlements would ever be on his plate, Mr. Trump answered yes.

• “At some point they will be,” Mr. Trump said, before pointing to United States economic growth. “At the right time, we will take a look at that.”

• Mr. Trump suggested that curbing spending on Medicare, the government health care program for the elderly, was a possibility.

• “We’re going to look,” [Trump] said.

• The interview left many questions unanswered, including whether Mr. Trump would consider touching Social Security or what part of Medicare he would be willing to shave. 

• The president has already proposed cuts for some safety-net programs. His last budget proposal called for a total of $1.9 trillion in cost savings from mandatory safety-net programs, like Medicaid and Medicare. It also called for spending $26 billion less on Social Security programs, the federal retirement program, including a $10 billion cut to the Social Security Disability Insurance program, which provides benefits to disabled workers.

• Following the $1.5 trillion tax cut that Republicans passed in 2017, some suggested that they would quickly turn to reduce the cost of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Read the full story here.

Read more:

• Associated Press: Trump suggests he may be open to entitlement cuts in future
• Washington Post: Trump appears open to overhauling Social Security and Medicare, in break from 2016 campaign pledge
• New York Times: Trump Opens Door to Cuts to Medicare and Other Entitlement Programs
• HuffPost: Trump Says He’s Willing To Tackle Entitlements ‘Toward The End Of The Year’
• MSNBC: In reversal, Trump puts post-2020 entitlement cuts on the table
• Vanity Fair: Trump Casually Confirms Medicare Is On the Chopping Block

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