"On Saturday night, Trump convinced 117 extraordinarily wealthy people to give him $50 million at a campaign fundraiser at the Palm Beach home of billionaire investor John Paulson. They believe that if Trump becomes president again, he’ll give them another big tax cut."
"But the only way to finance another big tax cut without exploding the federal budget deficit would be to cut Social Security and Medicare, which Trump now promises he won’t do. So either Trump’s billionaire backers are being conned or the American people are.
Robert B. Hubbell lists the points in the 2025 budget wish-list released yesterday by the Republican Study Committee, which comprises 80% of Republicans in the US House:
"1. Raise the age for retirement under Social Security and benefits for some beneficiaries."
"2. End Medicare as we know it by replacing it with a “premium support model” that would force Medicare to compete with private plans by giving beneficiaries a subsidy to buy private plans in lieu of Medicare. That approach would reduce funding for Medicare and weaken the program for Americans who cannot obtain private coverage.
Weaken the Affordable Care Act by reducing subsidies and implementing limiting regulations."
"4. Declare that 'life begins at conception' and extend the 14th Amendment to fertilized eggs, thereby giving them greater constitutional rights than women after the Dobbs decision. Such a policy would constitute a national ban on IVF and abortion alike. …
Based on the above priorities alone, no American should vote for any Republican."
Dan Pfeiffer says Trump is as unhinged as ever and more are paying attention:
"He can’t seem to stop saying insane, deeply politically damaging stuff. In the last two weeks, Trump has said:
He was open to cutting Social Security if elected;
There would be a 'bloodbath' if he lost the election;
He would pardon the January 6th rioters on his first day in office;
He doesn’t think immigrants are 'people;' and"
“'Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.' …
Trump is cracking under the intense scrutiny of the General Election."
Robert Reich explains why Trump has told us yet again he wants to cut Social Security and Medicare:
He and Republicans want another huge tax cut for the super-rich and big corporations. This would cause the federal budget deficit to explode — unless Social Security and Medicare are cut.
The elderly and sick — all ordinary Americans — can just eat cake. If they can find any after the cake's given to the super-rich.
"If he gets the chance, Donald Trump will cut Social Security and Medicare. I am confident of this not only because Trump has repeatedly said as much1 and not only because he repeatedly tried to do so when he was president but because a desire to cut Social Security and Medicare has long been central to the Republican cause."
"Republicans don’t hate Social Security and Medicare merely because they are wildly successful government programs that undermine their anti-government rhetoric. Republicans hate Social Security and Medicare because they don’t think you deserve a moment of rest until your final one. They want to squeeze every last drop of productivity out of you, monetizing your existence until the day you die."
‘Not on my watch’ -Biden blasts TFG over suggested cuts to SS, MDCR.
">150M ppl are covered by Medicare or Medicaid,, or ~45% of the US pop. MDCR covers primarily older Americans, while Medicaid covers primarily Americans with lower incomes.
The SS Admin says an average of almost 68M ppl get benefits monthly, about 20% of the US pop.
The vast majority of those SS recipients are age 62+."
"Republicans and cable news pundits had claimed that Joe Biden would prove to be a doddering old man incapable of making it up the stairs to the podium— much less delivering a coherent speech.
"President Biden gave a muscular speech that directly challenged Trump, MAGA extremism, the denial of reproductive liberty to women, tax cuts for millionaires, and efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare. He challenged Republicans to stand up for Ukraine and condemn the insurrectionists of January 6."
After the 2008 financial crisis (which really should more accurately be called the 2008 Fuck Around And Find Out Event), many observers wrote that rich speculators on the stock market had benefited, but it would be everyday people who paid the cost, for generations to come.
Most folks tend to assume these observations were about lost jobs and incomes, or future taxation to pay for the bailouts big companies got but everyday people didn't. The truth however is that corporate America and the investors who own the companies we work for weren't satisfied with billion dollar bailouts, and saw the aftermath of the crisis as a way to fundamentally alter their relationship with the labor class, to the benefit of the folks who own everything, and the detriment of those of us who work for a living. A good example of this would be the American auto industry, where only a generation ago, workers were able to retire at 55 with healthcare and a good pension; benefits that were clawed back in the wake of post-crisis reorganization of the industry, and simply never returned.
Of course in a humane society, this might be where we'd expect the government to step in; if not to force corporations to provide good pensions, to at least to help people retire with dignity and enough money to survive. That isn't how it actually works right now, but any reasonable person who doesn't want to see grandma eating tins of cat food in her 70's certainly thinks it should. Turns out that Bernie Sanders and eight other Democrat Senators agree, and now the Senator from Vermont is trying to publicly shame Congress to do something about it:
"In his op-ed, Sanders wrote that the loss of pension and fixed benefit plans among American workers—60% of whom had them in the early 1980s, compared to just 4% in 2023—has led to a 23% poverty rate among senior citizens, one of the highest rates compared to other wealthy countries, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development."
The plain and simple truth here is that as the Baby Boomer generation ages out of the workforce, America is speeding towards a retirement crisis; more and more Americans are retiring without any benefits accrued during a lifetime of laboring for capital, and simultaneously politicians from across the political spectrum are trying to raise the retirement age and gut, if not eliminate social security benefits. This isn't an oncoming train, it's more like an avalanche of boulders speeding towards our collective reality; and there will be a very real, and very predictable cost for the vast majority of Americans. A cost paid in miserable existences for seniors, and very real casualties in our society.
The bill Sanders and his allies in the Senate are proposing, the Social Security Expansion Act, would work towards addressing this crisis primarily by forcing the wealthy to pay more into the Social Security payroll tax - which is currently capped in such a way to ensure billionaires pay only a tiny fraction of their fair share into the system.
This is a problem that isn't going to solve itself, and Congress has the ability to address that problem with ready-crafted legislation they could pass right now. Will they? Don't bet your retirement on it buster...