Donald Trump is pushing a hole among the GOP over one of American politics’ thorniest issues: the future of Medicare and Social Security.
The former president’s assaults on potential GOP primary opponents, as well as his admonition to party leaders to avoid popular entitlement programmes in their quest to cut spending, are causing schisms among Republicans at all levels. Legislators who earlier supported entitlement reform are now publicly at war with colleagues who would like to moderate their positions before going to the polls in 2024. And what was once a referendum on Trump himself is now a referendum on Medicare and Social Security.
While the GOP has once again actively campaigned for changes to the benefits of both programmes, Trump has divided the party by labelling Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis a “wheelchair over the cliff kind of man” for backing a legislative budget that changes Medicare. Both Republican and Democratic parties believe that Trump’s measures are politically effective. But, other Republicans are outraged that their party is once again divided over fiscal restraint.
“It got him elected the first time, and I believe it will get him elected the second time,” said Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Budget Committee’s top Republican. “But, it accomplishes nothing for our children and grandkids who will not have access to the programme that I am currently enjoying.”
Others argue that the GOP has improved in the last decade, finally realising that voters aren’t as divided as elected officials on whether to touch the two-decade-old programmes, as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) phrased it.
“I definitely remember somebody effectively running a presidential campaign on this in 2012: the Paul Ryan budget, the austerity budget,” Hawley added, referring to the former Republican vice presidential nominee’s well-known fiscal conservatism. “I don’t recall that ticket doing really well. Personally, I don’t want to return to it.”
Trump’s brash rhetoric comes at a critical juncture for the Republican Party, as a group of senators privately meets to discuss possible changes to Medicare and Social Security. Meanwhile, as a result of Trump’s methods, other Republicans are remaining silent or adopting more modest plans aimed at preventing the programmes from becoming bankrupt, despite forecasts that both may be insolvent within a decade.
Targeting fraud and waste; establishing work restrictions or raising the eligibility age; and other benefit formula modifications are among the alternative GOP recommendations as the party frames its approach to the next debt-limit debate. A number of Republicans have also cited legislation introduced by Senators Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) that would establish “rescue committees” tasked with negotiating adjustments to sustain the programmes in the long run.
It’s enough to make Republican eyes roll up and down the halls of the Capitol.
“The best thing to do is to ignore him,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said of Trump. Senator Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) described Trump’s attack on DeSantis as “extremely regrettable.”
“We need a grownup as president who is willing to take on the tough challenges, the tough problems, and be prepared to share with the American people how serious it is. That we rely on facts. “And not scare tactics,” added Rounds, a member of the Senate’s entitlement working group.
Trump, on the other hand, obviously sees a commitment to keep Medicare and Social Security alone as a winning message. He blasted primary opponent Nikki Haley for making a decade-old remark about considering entitlement reforms to restrain government expansion.
Trump has also spoken with DeSantis, who as a congressman voted on three nonbinding budgets that called for gradually raising the eligibility age for Medicare, and his former vice president (Mike Pence recently stated on CNBC that Social Security and Medicare should be “on the table in the long term”).
DeSantis, Pence, and Haley aren’t the only ones who could face an attack from Trump over the subject. Other potential presidential contenders who have advocated entitlement reform include South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC).
As the GOP fight over entitlements heated up last month, Trump issued a warning to House Republicans in a video not to touch Social Security or Medicare as part of the debt ceiling showdown. Despite GOP protests, aides say he will continue to make entitlement reform a centrepiece of his campaign.
“That goes to the wider picture of how this isn’t just Trump vs Democrats — it’s Trump versus the establishment,” said a Trump adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “For many Republicans, this is a watershed moment in policy.”
Republicans have historically battled to reduce popular programmes, from former President George W. Bush’s failed Social Security privatisation scheme to the GOP’s attempts to repeal Obamacare and reduce Medicaid expansion. Republican leaders are currently committing to steer away from entitlements as they pursue still-unspecified spending cuts in exchange for agreeing to increase the debt ceiling, aligning with Trump.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy claimed last month that Social Security and Medicare changes are “absolutely off the agenda.”
While Trump is “talented at making the complex easy,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) is irritated by the former president’s “intellectually dishonest” campaign rhetoric on entitlements. Trump’s supporters see things differently, accusing the GOP of focusing too much on reducing or modifying the eligibility age for some of the government’s most popular programmes.
Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) stated that discussing entitlement changes is “politically dumb.”
“I just don’t like the political attitude that so many people have, where they will take a set of programmes that are enormously popular and incredibly beneficial for Republican voters and point to everything else that is more important than them,” said Vance, who has endorsed Trump.
Incidentally, Trump’s past budgets haven’t exactly fit with his case against slashing programmes. For example, in his fiscal 2021 budget, he proposed substantial safety-net cuts, including tens of billions of dollars in cuts to Social Security payments for handicapped employees and Medicare adjustments that would save approximately $500 billion without decreasing benefits.
Despite grim estimates for the programmes’ fiscal future, Democrats have showed little enthusiasm in banding together around any suggested entitlement modifications of their own. They do, however, perceive an advantage in the GOP split.
Republican disagreement on the issue “demonstrates a lack of discipline,” according to Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). “You wouldn’t assume it’s a group of people who have a well-organized plan for dealing with our budget, debt, and deficit over a long period of time.”
And the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee grudgingly credited Trump for connecting with his base.
“I give the devil his due,” Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle remarked. “I believe he has a greater feel for the Republican primary electorate than the Romney-Ryan wing.”
Taking advantage of their opponents’ internal feud could also benefit Democrats following a midterm campaign in which Republicans acknowledged the impact of entitlement-themed attacks on GOP Senate candidates. Blake Masters, Arizona’s Senate nominee last year, flirted with the concept of privatising Social Security before retreating.
“Telling old folks… that Blake Masters wants to privatise Social Security is definitely going to terrify them a little bit,” Barrett Marson, an Arizona-based GOP strategist, said of Masters, who is exploring a bid for president again in 2024.