Our friends at Social Security Works aren’t beating around the bush. They have a very direct, very stark message about the American social safety net. “President-elect Donald Trump and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan,” they wrote their members this week, “are getting their ducks in a row – preparing to destroy Medicare and Social Security in Trump’s first 100 days in office. Even though Trump ran on a promise to protect Medicare and Social Security, he is appointing people who believe just the opposite – and they’re not shy about saying so.”
Donald Trump’s new pick for Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), has said about Medicare:“We have to end Medicare as we know it.”Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), Trump’s pick as Secretary of Health and Human Services, has said about his desire to dismantle Social Security:Whether it’s means testing, whether it’s increasing the age of eligibility …. All those things ought to be on the table and discussed.These two future members of the Trump administration – both on record calling for the complete dismantling of Medicare and Social Security – will have extreme power over administering both programs. I can’t sugar coat this. Medicare and Social Security are in grave danger.Before Congress left town, Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) – Chairman of the House Social Security Subcommittee – introduced a bill that would, on average, cut Social Security benefits by 27% for the majority of recipients. He’d do this through a “greatest hits” of Social Security cuts including raising the retirement age, slashing cost-of-living adjustments and changing the benefit formula.Republicans have their road map all laid out. Now they’re just waiting for the New Year to implement the most dangerous overhaul of our earned benefits in history.
If Johnson’s proposals pass the House and Senate— almost certain in the House and not unlikely in the Senate— and then get signed by Trumpanzee, more than two-thirds of Social Security beneficiaries will see, on average, a 27% cut in benefits. This is how that breaks down:
• Raising the retirement age to 69 (equivalent to a 13.5 percent across-the-board cut)• Changing the benefit formula (9 percent average cut)• Slashing the cost-of-living adjustment (13 percent average cut)• Some long-lived beneficiaries could see cuts of up to 74 percent!• Eliminates the taxation of benefits on high earners-- giving a tax cut to those who need it least while reducing revenue back into the Social Security trust fund
Is there anything Democrats can do to stop this? In the House, not a thing. Maybe the feeble Democratic minority in the Senate, led by self-serving compromiser Chuck Schumer, can figure out a way to thwart the Republicans… but I wouldn’t;’t count on it. What I would count on is the good sense of American voters in 2017 and 2018 to defeat the Republican majority in the House and put a check on the extremism of Paul Ryan, Tom Price, Sam Johnson, Mike Pence, Mick Mulvaney, et al. The Democrats have to win a net of 24 Republican-held seats in the 2017 special elections and in the 2018 general. I have no faith in the DCCC being able to wipe their own asses but if Americans move fast and steadily, the DCCC can be rendered irrelevant to an historical slap down of a dual-party political establishment run amok. Blue America is busy recruiting strong, progressive candidates, for the special elections and for the general. Please keep track of the candidate on ths page that pops up when you tap the thermometer— and please support them early and often. We really need to put a brake on Trumpism, not matter how much you we loath the Debbie Wasserman Schultzes, Steny Hoyers, Chuck Schumers are the rest of the crooks “on our side.”