Republicans Starved Social Security

Now they want to wreck it.

These days, the MAGA Republican Party displays the survival instinct of dodo birds. Republican House and Senate leaders face staggering losses in both houses of Congress and in state races as a result of their cowardly capitulation to Donald Trump and the ensuing policy blunders they committed at his behest.

Aside from the narcissist in chief, no one will be shocked if Republicans get clobbered in November — certainly not after they passed the big, ugly bill (slashing healthcare and SNAP benefits to give billionaires more tax cuts); refused to compel complete disclosure of the Epstein pedophile files, or exercise a modicum of oversight of the most corrupt administration in history; sided with Trump’s ICE shock troops; and enabled the illegal, disastrous war in Iran. But wait: Republicans are still digging their political hole.

(Douglas Rissing/iStock)

Now, Republicans are menacing Social Security. After their own policies worsened the Social Security funding crisis (more about that in a minute), House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) last week grabbed hold of the proverbial third rail in politics, delivering Democrats a soundbite perfect for any “throw grandma over the cliff” midterm ad.

In a radio interview, Johnson responded to a government report that the Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund will run dry by 2032:

The reason we’re in trouble is because over seventy-four percent of federal spending is on autopilot — mandatory spending, that is your entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and things like Social Security — they have to be adjusted and fixed. We have a plan to do that next year, and it’s critical, because we’re at $40 trillion-plus in debt. At some point, you get into a hole so deep you can’t climb out of it, so desperate times call for desperate measures.

(Considering the timing — right after Elon Musk attained trillionaire status and Trump got slammed for professing love for inflation and indifference to Americans’ financial pain — you almost wonder if Johnson is picking Democrats to win in the midterm prediction markets.)

Reacting to Johnson’s blunder, even right-wing Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told The Bulwark that the speaker made Republicans sound like they want “all of their tax breaks and loopholes and carried interest deductions … [and want] working people who’ve paid into all of these programs to take less.” (Although Hawley says he really does not “like the sound” of cutting Social Security, he really did not like the sound last year of Trump’s proposal to slash Medicaid either — but then voted for it.)

Three senior House Democrats swiftly pounced, recounting Republicans’ long- standing animosity toward Social Security. DOGE stooges sabotaged Social Security customer service, mishandled private data, and got caught trying “to mark millions of living people as dead to force them out of the country.” Putting benefit cuts on the table (even with the midterm disaster looming) confirms Republicans have not given up their yearning “to destroy Social Security and Medicare,” House Democrats argued.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CN) on Monday followed up with a detailed letter. “Republicans have a history of attempting to increase the retirement age, privatize Social Security, or otherwise cut Social Security benefits, and some Congressional Republicans have called to raise the retirement age or means-test benefits as the ‘solution’ to this problem,” they wrote. Recently, both SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz have raised these ideas “to pay for the federal deficit, which the [big, ugly bill] worsened,” the senators observed.

Republicans’ favored “solutions” to the Social Security solvency problem exemplify their Simon Legree approach to governance. As the Democratic senators explained, raising the retirement age by two years would reduce a median retiree’s benefits between 17 and 35 percent, thereby “cutting tens of millions of Americans’ Social Security benefits and disproportionately [harming] seniors at the lower end of the income distribution who rely on Social Security as one of their main sources of income.”

The senators also demanded Trump answer pesky questions such as: Would you support removing the cap on income? Does the administration currently have a proposal to address the insolvency of the Social Security trust fund, and if so, does raising the retirement age factor into that proposal?

We anxiously await the answers — and for Democrats to raise the Social Security issue over and over again on the campaign trail and in every available oversight and budget hearing.

In addition to their generic vow to strengthen entitlements by “making the wealthy finally pay their fair share, so every American can retire with dignity,” Democrats could offer additional proposals to boost funding for Social Security, such as slapping a 100 percent tax on illegal presidential emoluments or prohibiting corporate tax deductions for donations to projects defacing federal property (e.g., the arch, the ballroom).

In this same vein, Democrats, who should restore Social Security reserves when they regain the majority, should highlight how two key Trump initiatives have undermined Social Security.

First, the big, ugly bill worsened the Social Security funding gap. By lowering tax rates and temporarily expanding seniors’ standard deductions, it reduced the number of people paying into the system and the total amount paid in. Applying the Hippocratic Oath — first do no harm — would mean at least repealing the big ugly bill that robbed Social Security of critical revenue. (Certainly, repeal would also improve the general revenue picture, restore Medicaid and SNAP benefits, and end the unparalleled funding bonanza for abusive ICE and Border Patrol operations.)

Second, Trump’s draconian deportation operations and the concurrent crackdown on legal immigration make the Social Security problem worse. “Immigrants—including undocumented immigrants—offset the demographic factors that are straining the Social Security Trust Fund, namely fewer young workers paying into the fund and many more older Americans drawing from it,” the American Immigration Council has explained.

Halting the morally disgusting and economically disastrous assault on migrants would bring a bevy of positive results, but perhaps none as critical as helping to put Social Security on sturdier financial footing. Trump and his fellow white supremacists won’t admit that their economically suicidal anti-immigrant agenda, among other things, shrinks the tax base, stifles access to the best and brightness minds who promote technological innovation, and increase housing and food costs. But facts are facts. The resulting decrease in the workforce and payroll tax receipts has only aggravated the Social Security funding shortfall.

In sum, it took a decade, but Trump bootlicker extraordinaire Sen. Lindsey Graham’s infamous 2016 prophesy (“If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed ... and we will deserve it”) certainly proved accurate. Republicans’ midterm blunders, specifically their latest assault on Social Security, perfectly illustrate that their Faustian bargain with Trump drained them of whatever political survival skills they still had. A crushing defeat in November would be precisely what they deserve.

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