Trump Gears Up to Cut Social Security and Medicare

For decades now, rural and many working class voters in Virginia have fallen for variants of  Republicans' "god, guns, and gays" and a hefty dose of racism and voted Republican even thought the Republican agenda and policies are in most cases directly opposed to these voters' own best economic interest.  In the 2024 election we saw this writ large on a national scale as many of the same types of voters rallied to Donald Trump on his promises to deport non-whites, make gays invisible again, and restore white privilege.  Meanwhile, Trump's regime will do many things against the economic interests of these very same voters, including gearing up to cut Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security in order to fund more huge tax cuts for the very wealthy and corporate America. Add in the higher prices triggered by Trump's promised tariffs and these voters have profoundly screwed themselves over and will inflict suffering on the rest of us. Indeed, the only thing that may save many from themselves is the fear of congressional Republicans who will have to face voters in 2026, assuming Trump doesn't manufacture a reason to postpone elections. As for Trump, he cares nothing for those who foolishly voted for him.  A piece in Salon looks at the possible coming cuts that would harm millions. Here are highlights:

There are a thousand election hot takes and post-mortems floating around these days and I'm sure we'll soon come to some consensus about what drove the Trump victory (now down to a whopping 1.48% margin and shrinking.) But if there's one thing we do know it's that he won both of his elections at least in part by shedding some Republican Party orthodoxy that had been bringing the GOP down for ages. He knows a third rail when he sees one.

And if there's one issue that differentiated Trump from other Republicans from the minute he came down that golden escalator it's his promise to preserve the so-called entitlement programs. . . . . "I'm not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I'm not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid," and it may have been the key to his success in that first campaign.

He lied. His proposed budgets cut the programs every year he was in office. As Vox reported back in 2019:

Over the next 10 years, Trump’s 2020 budget proposal aims to spend $1.5 trillion less on Medicaid — instead allocating $1.2 trillion in a block-grant program to states — $25 billion less on Social Security, and $845 billion less on Medicare (some of that is reclassified to a different department). Their intentions are to cut benefits under Medicaid and Social Security.

Obviously, Congress didn't approve those cuts so it didn't happen but it wasn't for lack of trying.

That last budget was put together by the man Trump is bringing back as his Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and one of the principal authors of Project 2025, Russell Vought. It's highly questionable whether Vought will be as circumspect about the plans to cut the programs this time or whether Trump will care because all of that was predicated on Trump's need to run for office again. Without that hanging over their heads they have no need to hold back. Republicans have wanted to do away with those programs since they were first passed. This may be their chance to finally get it done.

As we know, Trump has pledged to create a sexy new government commission led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy called the "Department of Government Efficiency" or DOGE . . . . Vought has said that he plans to work closely with the commission to use executive action to accomplish the slashing and burning of government programs they're promising.

Vought hasn't openly called for cutting Social Security retiree benefits but has promoted cutting disability payments and Medicaid and fully privatizing Medicare. His history suggests, however, that given the go-ahead he will gleefully take a meat ax to the program. Musk, however, has been clear that he believes the government has to be cut to the bone immediately which he admits will cause "hardship" that we will just have to bear.

This week, the far-right senator from Utah, Mike Lee, posted a thread on Twitter/X in which he claims that Social Security is a scam that the government mismanages and must be reformed so that people can "invest" their money and avoid "dependence."

It's the same old story. In fact, the last time they tried this after President George W. Bush declared he had a mandate from his re-election victory, it ushered in a massive Democratic congressional takeover in the midterms and a two-term Democratic presidency. The financial crisis hit and everyone in America saw the wisdom of having at least a portion of their old age or disability safety net guaranteed by the government instead of Wall Street. I suppose it's possible that it's ancient history to a lot of people but I kind of doubt it is for anyone over 50.

But it's possible they won't even try to sell it that way. Musk expects people to suffer in order to save the country from bankruptcy which he has decided is imminent. Vought and his right-wing Christian nationalist allies want to completely decimate the "administrative state" so they may just declare that the program is insolvent and cut the benefits across the board.

With what will be a tiny majority in the House it's very hard to see anything like that passing. Unlike Trump, they have to face the voters again. But we do know that Vought is a big fan of "impoundment" which basically says that the president can spend money however he wants regardless of what Congress has intended.

It is highly likely that the DOGE group and Vought at OMB are going to try to use this concept to sidestep Congress completely. Whether they have the nerve to attempt it with something as massive as Social Security or Medicare remains to be seen. But those programs are the right's great white whale and I wouldn't be surprised if they make another attempt to finally kill them.

Donald Trump certainly won't care. He never has to face another voter and that is the only reason he ever promised to keep his hands off of the programs in the first place. Trump can do somersaults on the third rail now and it can't hurt him at all. His party is another story, but he doesn't care about them either.