Democrats once advocated for Medicare and Social Security reform, but the growing political costs of even discussing entitlement reform have prompted politicians to drop the issue completely.
You just open yourself up to potshots, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. Fox News Digital asked why the idea of entitlement reform is being pursued by the government. Politically, it is a losing position. Cassidy, a Republican, leads the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. This year, he was a leader in a bipartisan working group for a proposed extension of the life of social security that projections say could be insolvent by 2033.
He said that President Biden has made it clear that he is not interested in even bipartisan proposals to ensure the sustainability of Social Security.
You have to have a president who's engaged in order to accomplish any of this, Cassidy said. And if we have a president as we do now who doesn't want to do anything, he makes the right comments, but when you look at his proposals, they're not serious then there's no reason to do anything. In a speech at a campaign event, former President Hillary Clinton took steps to extend the life of Medicare. His successor, former President George W. Bush, fashioned social security reform efforts into a basic pillar. Even former President Obama tried to improve Social Security finances by changing certain cost-of-living metrics.
Now, Cassidy stands among the few on Capitol Hill advocating for active measures to extend the solvency of core entitlements, particularly Social Security. Democrat-fueled accusations that Republicans wanted to gut Social Security and Medicare during debt limit negotiations were so potent that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy swore they were off the table at the time.
On several occasions, Cassidy has criticized Biden for failing to take the necessary steps to reform the social security system.
Biden came out of his State of the Union speech and didn't speak about the proposal, which we briefed his office on, Cassidy said. In a speech Monday at the State of Union, he didn't speak on our bipartisan proposal, but rather on Rick Scott's proposal, which Rick actually walked back from. So you know, at that point, the politics were clear.
Cassidy said he is running for re-election. He's going to attack Republicans and we're not going to get his cooperation on our bipartisan proposal. If you have no president at the table, you're wasting time. Cassidy said former President Trump did not pay any attention to the issue, and that he also did not pay any attention to the issue.
Anybody who talks about doing anything on Socia Security begins to criticize them for cutting the program, allegedly cutting the program, Trump said, adding that both Trump and Bidens inaction is effectively advocating for a 24% cut in benefits the current law, which is based on current tax collections.
I think it's a difficult issue to solve right now, he said. Youve got to be honest with the American people, so if there's one person being dishonest and two people being dishonest, it's really hard to push back on and say well, weve always heard that social is going to go insolvent, its never happened. Now it's about nine years away. conservative fiscal policy has frequently relied on entitlement and welfare reform as central ideas. economists who spoke with Fox News Digital said that the Republican Party was shifting away from those issues to match its major demographic shift around 2016 in the region.
You can credit Trump with some of this, but it's bringing blue-collar workers into the base of the Republican Party, said Paul Winfree, an analyst for the Americans For Prosperity advisory board and former Trump administration economist.
And it's this base that not only is more likely to be reliant on Social Security and Medicare in general, but they're also more likely to be reliant on Social Security and Medicare today, he said. And they just so happen to be the same folks who were in the prime of their working lives in the late 90s and early 2000s, fast forward 20 years, when now they're retirement, and they're collecting Social Security, and they're on the Medicare program, he said. And now all of the sudden, if you go to these folks and say, social security and Medicare are unsustainable, and we need to reform them, their initial comment is, Well, wait a minute. When budgets were balanced, where did it go? Maya MacGuineas, of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal budget, suggested that Trump's shift towards the narrative was one of the main players behind the change and said Biden was wary of departing from it as he runs for re-election.
The president has made a significant difference when he promised not to fix Social Security and Medicare, not to fix them, not to touch them. And then the majority of the Republican Party went along, and there was suddenly a huge, remarcable silence of nobody talking about how these programs are headed towards insolvency, MacGuineas said.
Now you have President Biden, who has also promised not to touch the programs, and a presidential race which may well focus on how people aren't going to fix Social Security and Medicare instead of how they would to be a huge detriment of, in particular, people who depend on those programs, she said.
Republicans trying to do something now will likely be met with Democrats using entitlement reform as a toxic narrative, Winfree said.
Every time anybody talks about, you know, reforms needed, reforms to Medicare and Social Security, you have Democrats talking about how they're pushing grandma off a cliff, Winfree said.
MacGuineas, like Sen. Cassidy, said that a lack of decisive leadership on the matter at the top has stalled most meaningful attempts at reform on both sides of the aisle.
What they're finding is that promising things that aren't possible or not good for recipients still makes good politics, and you have both sides competing over that, she said. Public opinion on these issues always follows leadership. Until you have leadership at the top that's willing to be honest, the public is understandably scared about losing benefits that they depend on, and you need a truth teller at the top, she said.