Republicans are the ones that have fucked Social Security. Theyve been against it since its inception, and are still trying to fuck with it.
During Republican demigod Ronald Reagan’s first term, the former B-movie actor thought it was a good idea to “reform” Social Security. Anyone following conservative politics is well-aware that when a Republican uses that word reform, it means drastic cuts if not abolition. At the time, even many Republicans understood something former House Speaker Tip O’Neill had
said about Social Security: “it is the “
third rail of American politics” that if you touch it and you die. Mr. O’Neill should be credited as much as anyone in America as the man who made touching, gutting, or abolishing Social Security a deadly political issue. That being the case, as noted by Andrew Bradford, “
Donald Trump might want to start picking out a nice casket.
According to an “
unnamed source standing in the room” during Trump’s storied
meeting with House Speaker Paul Ryan, Trump told Ryan that he is in favor of gutting Social Security like most Republicans. But, like most Republicans he is terrified of saying so on the campaign trail because it would be the death knell for his electoral chances in November. Now, Trump did not say he wants to gut Social Security for budgetary reasons, or because he will ever get any of the Trust’s trillions of dollars in reserve; trillions, by the way, that belong lock, stock and barrel to the American people. No, Trump’s reason is actually worse; if that is even possible.
According to the person in the room, Trump said he would gut Social Security because like lying about his intent to steal Americans’ retirement savings; it was the morally upright thing to do. Trump
told Ryan that,
“
From a moral standpoint, I believe in it. But you also have to get elected. And there’s no way a Republican is going to beat a Democrat when the Republican is saying, ‘We’re going to cut your Social Security’ and the Democrat is saying, ‘We’re going to keep it and give you more.’ ”
At least Trump’s comment clearly delineates Republicans from Democrats on the issue of Social Security.
The executive director of Social Security Works, Alex Lawson, deeply believes that regardless what Trump says on the stump, he is no different than any other Republicans who desperately want to gut Social Security while pretending to support it; usually with clever buzzwords like ‘protecting young Americans’ future well-being.”
Donald Trump won’t say it, but Republicans in the Senate will: Social Security and Medicare would be on the chopping block in a second Trump term. Pointing to
rising deficits, Republican senators have all but promised to gut entitlements if Trump gets four more years.
Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the second-ranking Senate Republican,
expressed hope to the
New York Times that Trump would be “interested” in reforming Social Security and Medicare. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) was even more optimistic. “We’ve brought it up with President Trump, who has talked about it being a second-term project,” Barrasso said. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has made no secret of wanting to cut
Social Security.
In using deficit fears to target entitlement programs, many Republicans are hoping to use Trump's second term to cut Medicare and Social Security. First, expand deficits through tax cuts, then declare that spending must be slashed. The chief target of these proposed cuts is Social Security, which historians have noted the mainstream Republican party has long sought to diminish, privatize, or both.
“Starve the beast”
Senate Republicans’ talk of entitlement cuts come in the context of
new estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, which predicts the deficit will climb to $1 trillion in 2020. By 2029, the deficit relative to GDP is slated to reach the highest levels since World War II—an unprecedented deficit level for an economic expansion, when deficits tend to shrink.
Since past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior, and many Republicans are signaling they want to, Republicans will likely argue for cuts to Social Security and Medicare when a recession
inevitably hits. This can be seen as a reprise of the tactic known as “starve the beast.
“Starve the beast” is a political two-step that first generates deficits through
tax cuts and, second, points to the alarmingly high deficits to attack government spending and reduce entitlements.
Credited to an unnamed Reagan administration official in 1985 and long associated with Reagan economic guru David Stockman, the notion of “starve the beast” emerged from around the time of Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts, which were not paired with simultaneous spending reductions.
Reagan
held that higher deficits would naturally lead to budget reductions: “We can lecture our children about extravagance until we run out of voice and breath. Or we can cure their extravagance by simply reducing their allowance.”
Today, you can see the “starve the beast” tactic clearly in the 2017 tax cuts—the main cause of the projected record deficits—to future spending cuts. Trump’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow, a veteran of the Reagan administration, has made this argument himself. He explicitly invoked “starve the beast” in a 1996
Wall Street Journal op ed:
It would be no surprise to learn that Kudlow, who now heads Trump's National Economic Council, is pursuing the same course today.
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