That didn’t take long. As Republicans in Congress look for ways to cut spending, they’re already raising one of the most controversial ideas in all of American politics — changes to Social Security.
“We’re going to have to have some hard decisions,” U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Suwanee, said this week. “We’ve got to bring the Democrats in and talk about Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare. There’s hundreds of billions of dollars to be saved.”
While there is absolutely nothing wrong with GOP efforts to cut federal spending, when you get into Social Security — that’s a whole different ball of wax.
McCormick’s otherwise boilerplate interview on Fox Business set off political alarms among Democrats and liberal groups who saw his Social Security remarks as the opening salvo from Republicans.
“We don’t need to cut benefits,” said U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., in response to McCormick’s call. “It’s an earned benefit you pay into with each and every paycheck.”
One of the ideas which is often floated is raising the full retirement age for Social Security at which workers can get benefits. That’s currently at age 67 for those born in 1960 or later.
“All people affected by such an increase,” the Congressional Budget Office wrote in September, “would receive a smaller amount of Social Security benefits over their lifetime.”
Proposing partisan changes to Social Security is often seen on Capitol Hill as political suicide — akin to touching the electrified “third rail“ of a subway line. It’s one reason major entitlement program changes usually fail.
The last time Republicans floated big reforms was in 2005, when President George W. Bush tried to partially privatize Social Security accounts.
The plan flopped even though Bush had much larger majorities in Congress than President-elect Donald Trump will have next year.
When you boil down the choices, there are just three basic options for lawmakers on Social Security and Medicare.
Congress can raise taxes or find new ways to funnel more revenue into those programs. The second choice would be to focus just on cuts and other ways to reduce spending. Or lawmakers could embrace a combination of the two.
The recent GOP record doesn’t show much political will on the budget. The past two years, House Republicans couldn’t even pass an agricultural spending bill that featured minor cuts in farm programs.
Approving billions of dollars in reductions for Social Security and Medicare will be much more difficult.
“We just have to have the stomach to actually take those challenges on,” McCormick said.
The Georgia Republican will get his chance in January. The voters will be watching.
Jamie Dupree has covered national politics and Congress from Washington, D.C. since the Reagan administration. His column appears weekly in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. For more, check out his Capitol Hill newsletter at http://jamiedupree.substack.com
About the Author
