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Insider’s Report: Majority of House Republicans Support Budget Plan That Cuts Social Security and Medicare
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For solid clues as to what the Republicans will do to Americans’ earned benefits if they maintain power in the House and recapture the Senate and/or the White House, look no further than the House Republican Study Committee (RSC) 2025 budget blueprint. For the second year in a row, the RSC proposes cutting Social Security and
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Medicare. U.S. Representative Brendan Boyle (PA-02), Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, estimated at a recent hearing that these cuts amount to $1.5 trillion for Social Security and $1 trillion for Medicare
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For solid clues as to what the Republicans will do to Americans’ earned benefits if they maintain power in the House and recapture the Senate and/or the White House, look no further than the House Republican Study Committee (RSC) 2025 budget blueprint. For the second year in a row, the RSC proposes cutting Social Security and Medicare. U.S. Representative Brendan Boyle (PA-02), Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, estimated at a recent hearing that these cuts amount to $1.5 trillion for Social Security and $1 trillion for Medicare.
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On the Social Security side, the RSC calls for raising the full Social Security retirement age from its current level of 67 (for anyone born in 1960 or later) to an unspecified older age. “Raising the retirement age is a huge benefit cut,” explains NCPSSM President and CEO, Max Richtman, “because you’d be receiving less money as a beneficiary during your lifetime.”
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In addition, the RSC budget implies making the Social Security Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) discretionary — meaning Congress and the President decide if and when COLAs are provided — not automatically as they are now as a part of a mandatory program.
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The RSC budget suggests the COLA should be lower than current CPI-W but unlike their previous budgets, they don’t specifically say the chained CPI. What the RSC would do to the COLA would most likely hurt current beneficiaries.
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The RSC also proposes reducing benefits for “upper income earners.” This would put Social Security on a slippery slope toward means testing. “Means testing means Social Security would no longer be an earned benefit, but a welfare program,” says Richtman. An analysis by the Center for American Progress estimates if the RSC proposal were in effect today, anyone whose lifetime wages averaged over $85,000 would be considered ‘wealthy’ and have their benefits cut — including the elimination of crucial spousal and child benefits.
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Republicans may deny it, but cutting Social Security IS their fiscal plan, claiming that the government can’t afford to strengthen the program without cuts. At the same time, the RSC budget would make the $2 trillion unpaid-for Trump/GOP tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations permanent. They will not entertain, however, raising taxes on high income earners in order to bring more revenue into Social Security.
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With so much at stake during this critical presidential election year, please help the National Committee remind U.S. Senators and Representatives why Social Security and Medicare are so important to millions of older Americans and why you reject any budget plan or proposal that would harm your earned benefits by signing our EMERGENCY PETITION TO CONGRESS today!
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Ask Us!
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Whether you’re retired or approaching retirement, our team of experts in the field of Social Security policy is available to answer your questions about benefits.
You can either search our archives for valuable advice on a broad range of concerns or submit your question here.
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This week’s question is:
I am single and will be eligible to receive Social Security as of next January. Will I have to pay income tax on this?
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Click here to read the answer.
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Ask Us
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Whether you’re currently retired or approaching retirement, we can help answer your questions and provide valuable advice on Social Security.
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Join Now/Donate
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Your support sustains our campaigns in Washington to protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare.
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Social Security Benefits
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Learn more about the Social Security program and the policies the National Committee supports that would strengthen your earned benefits.
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NCPSSM President and CEO Max Richtman told senior political correspondent John Delano, “A raise in the retirement age is a reduction in benefits” and warned against GOP proposals to means-test Social Security. (March 21, 2024, KDKA-TV (CBS), Jon Delano)
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Read Here →
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“While Social Security COLA’s have been decent during the past two years, there have been times in the past decade when the COLA was as little as 1.3% and ZERO percent,” Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, told ThinkAdvisor. (March 28, 2024, Think Advisor, Melanie Waddell)
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Read Here →
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It’s taken decades of work, but Medicare is better at addressing more health conditions seen in this burgeoning older population, according to Anne Montgomery, senior analyst with the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. “It’s not that there haven’t been efforts to try to update Medicare, and gradually we have created a better program, but we still have a long way to go to tweak it,” she says. (March 26, 2024, Fortune, Liz Seegert)
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Read Here →
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"I’ve written before that raising the retirement age is the stupidest and most dishonest proposed 'fix' for Social Security. It’s cherished by think tankers and politicians who spend their working lives with their bellies pressed against a desk in air conditioned offices and have zero conception of what it’s like to spend a career hauling, digging, driving and building in the elements," writes Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times. (March 27, 2024, Los Angeles Times, Michael Hiltzik)
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As politicians and partisans debate how to make sure Social Security — an historically amazing and important program for the aging — has a secure financial future, one topic regularly brought up is the idea of delaying the retirement age. (March 26, 2024, Forbes, Erik Sherman)
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After a months-long hiring freeze, the Social Security Administration is once again facing even further declining staffing numbers. But with agency spending now determined for the rest of fiscal 2024, and hiring now unfrozen, SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley is readying the agency’s plans to rebuild its workforce as quickly and efficiently as possible. (March 25, 2024, Federal News Network, Drew Friedman)
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House Republicans have a plan to raise the age at which Americans receive Social Security benefits. Earlier this week, the Republican Study Committee unveiled their fiscal year 2025 budget proposal — which consisted of nearly 200 pages of funding priorities for key issues, including taxes, higher education, and healthcare. (March 22, 2024, Yahoo! News, Juliana Kaplan and Ayelet Sheffey)
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President Joe Biden has once again warned of the threat that Donald Trump would pose to Social Security if he wins back the White House. (March 24, 2024, Newsweek, Khaleda Rahman)
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