Former Vice President Mike Pence’s bid for the White House could highlight a conflict over Social Security and Medicare, and some of his Republican rivals, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have kept their distance.
Pence kicked off his campaign on Wednesday, different People from most of the major Republican fields talk about entitlement reform, often referred to as the third track of American politics.
“The biggest driver of out-of-control spending is our New Deal and the Great Society programs that Americans rely on every day, Social Security and Medicare,” Pence said in his presidential proclamation speech.
He believes that if left unaddressed, the burden of these programs will “shatter” the future of the next generation.
His stance puts him in direct conflict with former President Donald Trump, who flatly refused to cut both programs and lashed out at DeSantis over his past support of restructuring proposals. Both Trump and President Biden attacked DeSantis from the same angle.
DeSantis has since changed his mind, pledging in recent months that Republicans “don’t mess with Social Security.”His presidential campaign has spent little time on the issue — perhaps unsurprising given a pollster who supports Trump It is said DeSantis’ record on cutting rights was found to be his most vulnerable position among swing state voters.
Biden’s “policy is bankruptcy,” Pence said, but “my fellow Republicans, you should know that Donald Trump’s position on welfare reform is the same. It brings the American people.”
trump effect
The gulf between the presidential front-runner and more traditional conservative figures like Pence, Trump’s former top ally, is unlikely to win the White House, reflecting the GOP’s shift from a once-republican message of fiscal responsibility. The core position retreated.
Some experts trace the turning point to Trump’s political rise.
“A lot of the Republican positions are those of conservative Ph.D. economists — lower taxes, lower benefits, more trade, whatever,” said Steven Thiels, a political science professor and senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University. Niskanen Center interviewed. “Trump has made no commitments to the framework at all.”
Trump realized that “he could tell people what they wanted to hear, and nobody in the Republican Party really tried,” Telles said.
Trump himself has called improve Raise the Social Security retirement age to 70 — a view he dropped when he became a presidential candidate in 2015.
Former U.S. president and 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump smiles during a Team Trump volunteer leadership training at the Grimes Community Center on June 1, 2023 in Grimes, Iowa .
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images
“We’re going to save it without an increase,” Trump said at the time. “We’re not going to raise the age, it’s going to be fine.”
If Trump is engaged in political calculations, it is not difficult.
Tens of millions of older Americans depend on Social Security and Medicare benefits, and that number is growing as the population grows age. In turn, the share of registered voters over the age of 50 has exploded in recent decades.older voters tend to turn out rate is higher than younger groups, and they also tend Leaning more Republican.
Majority of U.S. adults across political affiliations unanimously say they against cutting Medicare and Social Security benefits. They also opposed some of the ideas proposed to reform the program, such as raising the eligibility age, reducing the size of Social Security payments or raising Medicare premiums.
But both programs will dry up in the coming years as the growing cohort of welfare-eligible seniors outstrips the shrinking workforce that finances them through the payroll tax.
Beginning in 2034, Social Security’s excess reserves are generally expected to be depleted, while Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund Expected Unable to pay full benefits by 2031.
Infighting
Some Republicans, including a handful of presidential contenders, have continued to call for entitlement reform as they warn of a looming bankruptcy crisis. But many others, including party leaders, bristled at allegations that the GOP wanted to weaken Social Security and Medicare.
Republicans booed loudly when Biden accused some of them of trying to kill both programs during his recent State of the Union address. This is an apparent reference to a plan proposed last year by Sen. Rick Scott, chairman of the Republican Senate campaign committee, that would include “all federal legislation lapsing within five years. If the law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.”
But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) dismissed Scott’s plans, saying a proposal to cancel them “would not be part of the Republican Senate majority agenda.”
Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), accompanied by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) Speaks at a press conference for the White House to end their standoff and avoid a historic default at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., May 31, 2023.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. A red line has been drawn around the plans as part of the recent political battle over the debt ceiling.
Critics, including the White House, say the Republicans’ vague proposal to “strengthen” benefits would actually lead to damaging cuts.Biden press aide Andrew Bates accused Republicans of “directly targeting” the plans in a memo Wednesday, noting McCarthy’s recent Call up Asks congressional committees to seek cuts to spending across the government — including mandatory spending programs like Medicare and Social Security.
Meanwhile, Trump remains a driving force in the Republican Party, warn Republican lawmakers don’t want to cut “a penny from Medicare or Social Security” as part of the debt ceiling fight.
Once again, the mainstream Republican view of the right is becoming clear. A 2011 Budget Proposal With the support of then-House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), reforming Medicare became a top priority. The scheme will privatize the scheme by giving seniors subsidies to buy private insurance.
The following year, Ryan was selected as Mitt Romney’s running mate in the 2012 presidential campaign against then-President Barack Obama. In 2015, Ryan was elected speaker of the House of Representatives.
DeSantis’ point of view
DeSantis endorsed Ryan’s idea when he ran for Congress in 2012.
“I think what we need to do specifically for our generation is start restructuring the program, including Social Security and Medicare, in a financially sustainable way,” DeSantis said in a 2012 interview.
“I’d take proposals, you know, like Paul Ryan’s and others’ that are going to be there to give some market power and more consumer choice and make it not just a system when you have a new guy coming in,” DeSantis said.
“Social Security, I would do the same thing,” he added.
After entering Congress, DeSantis vote A non-binding conservative budget proposal for reform rights.
But before he entered the White House, DeSantis took a different tack.
Fireside chat with Governor Ron DeSantis and First Lady Kathy DeSantis on June 2, 2023 in Lexington, South Carolina as part of our Great American Renaissance campaign.
Peter Zai | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
“Percentage-wise, I have more seniors in (Florida) than almost anyone else. You know, we’re not going to disrupt Social Security like the Republicans,” DeSantis responded to Bailey on Fox News in March. Deng said when claiming that Republicans support spending cuts.
“I think that’s pretty clear,” DeSantis added, before shifting the discussion away from entitlements and arguing that discretionary spending — money that Congress must vote to appropriate each year — is driving inflation.
As a presidential candidate, DeSantis vowed to rein in profligate government spending.But his campaign website makes no mention of Social Security and Medicare — which account for nearly 8% of GDP 2022 – He didn’t initiate the question.
DeSantis announced his campaign in a lengthy, free-form conversation with Twitter CEO Elon Musk that discussed a wide range of social issues and other policy topics, but did not touch on entitlements. right.
In subsequent Fox interviews, DeSantis avoided discussing Medicare and Social Security directly, even when asked twice how he would handle the programs.
Asked whether Fox could address deficit spending without addressing entitlement, DeSantis said, “Of course, the overspending is driving inflation,” before turning to the Fed.
Asked if he believed the budget could be balanced without involving mandatory spending, DeSantis said, “Well, it’s true. You know, I mean the math, at the end of the day, We spend a lot more. And it’s a combination of discretionary and mandatory spending.
DeSantis campaign points CNBC to three other recent interview where the topic arises. Asked about the country’s fiscal situation in an interview with libertarian John Stossel, DeSantis emphasized that increases in discretionary spending outpaced mandatory spending.
In an interview with Newsmax, DeSantis was asked to respond to Trump ally DeSantis’ criticism of rights reform.
“Those were Democratic attacks,” DeSantis said. “I don’t think anyone is really buying it.”