Social Insecurity

“Every Republican wants to do a big number on Social Security…

They want to do it on Medicare, they want to do it on Medicaid. And we can’t do that.

And it’s not fair to the people that have been paying in for years.”

“Hillary Clinton is going to destroy your Social Security and Medicare…

I am going to protect and save your Social Security and your Medicare.”

Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election campaign

“Entitlements ever be on your plate?”

CNBC’s Joe Kernen at the World Economic Forum in Davos (1/22/2020), addressing Social Security, Medicare, etc.

“At some point they will be. We have tremendous growth. We’re going to have tremendous growth.

This next year I — it’ll be toward the end of the year. The growth is going to be incredible.

And at the right time, we will take a look at that. You know, that’s actually the easiest of all things,

 if you look, cause it’s such a —” Donald Trump in response

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was signed into law in December of 2017. While it eliminated a few loopholes, it reduced the federal corporate tax rate from its 35% level to 21% in one fell swoop. Once again, trickle-down economics failed. There was no surge in hiring. There was no material uptick in building or upgrading American factories or other commercial structures. There were lots of rewards to shareholders from stock buybacks plus lots of mergers and acquisitions. Generally, corporate mergers and acquisitions lead to blending corporate functions, thus eliminating the obvious redundancy: layoffs. The rich got richer. The rest of us got deficits to repay. Huge new increases to our existing massive deficit!

The October 16, 2018 NPR summarized the first-year results from that tax cut: “The federal deficit ballooned to $779 billion in the just-ended fiscal year — a remarkable tide of red ink for a country not mired in recession or war… The government is expected to borrow more than a trillion dollars in the coming year, in part to make up for tax receipts that have been slashed by GOP tax cuts.

“Corporate tax collections fell by 31 percent in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, despite robust corporate profits. That's hardly surprising after lawmakers cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21… Income taxes withheld from individuals grew by 1 percent. Overall tax receipts were flat. As a share of the economy, tax receipts shrank to 16.5 percent of GDP, from 17.2 percent the previous year.

“‘The president is very much aware of the realities presented by our national debt,’ said White House budget director Mick Mulvaney… He insisted that accelerating economic growth will eventually help fill the deficit hole, though so far there's little evidence that growth is finding its way to government coffers.” It never has, but the deficit continues to bloom upwards.

So, how to reduce federal spending, cut federal programs, to support this massive unnecessary tax cut that truly only benefitted the richest in the land? Given the GOP’s proclivity to deregulate, their hostility to so-called “entitlements” (even though earned by those receiving retirement benefits… by paying into the system), as acknowledged in Donald Trump’s opening quotes above, and notwithstanding a once-immutable GOP aversion to incurring deficits, their choices to rein in the deficit focused on cutting “entitlements”: food stamps (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, student loans, etc. In short, we need poor folks and middle-class Americans to bear the burden of handing the richest Americans a permanent windfall, exacerbating the worst income inequality in the developed world even more.

As the above Davos quote confirms and notwithstanding his campaign pledges (also above) to the contrary, Donald Trump is totally open to continue to review and reduce social programs. You can always tell when someone is about to attack such established programs. They just have to call that program part of creeping socialism, and the ears, particularly of older Americans still smarting from decades of anti-communist policies, perk up. That socialism has a completely different meaning: government versus private ownership of all businesses, farms and often even homes – falls on deaf ears. Things like public schools, safety nets for those in need, Social Security, etc. are social programs, which exist at some significant level in every so-called capitalistic nation on earth. That is not “socialism.” Sorry, conservatives. It’s called “English.”

Michael Hiltzik, writing his OpEd for the January 24^th Los Angeles Times, provides further evidence of the President’s/GOP’s intentions for the coming year: “Cutting benefits has been part of Republican orthodoxy for decades, but the drumbeat has gotten louder. In September, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) talked about the need to go ‘behind closed doors’ to reform Social Security, because it’s clear that the American public won’t stand for it being done in the open. A year earlier, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) labeled Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — so-called entitlements — ‘the real drivers of the debt’ and called for them to be adjusted ‘to the demographics of the future.’

“It’s worth noting that proposals to cut social insurance benefits are certain to be dead on arrival as long as Democrats control at least one chamber of Congress, as they do currently. Indeed, the Democratic Party, through its representatives in Congress and its candidates for president, has shown itself to be strongly in favor of expanding and increasing Social Security benefits, not cutting them back.

“Trump still can do a lot of damage to these programs by starving their administrative budgets or tinkering with administrative rules, as he’s proposed to do with Medicaid and Social Security Disability Insurance.

“As I’ve reported before, Trump’s cavalier approach to these programs isn’t really a secret… His proposed 2020 budget would have pared as much as $1.5 trillion from Medicaid, partially by repealing the Medicaid expansion enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act, and partially by converting the program to a block grant to states — a system that destroys the program’s ability to match funding with costs and results in a massive shortfall over time.

“Trump’s budget would gut the nation’s disability programs by $84 billion. At least $10 billion of that would come from Social Security disability through changes in eligibility rules. An additional $400 million would come out of the Social Security Administration’s administrative budget, which is already strapped for cash, in the next year alone. Beneficiaries could expect more busy signals on the phone lines and longer waits at Social Security offices.

“In October, Trump signed an executive order bristling with stealth attacks on Medicare. Buried within the order was a provision that would destroy Medicare by driving its costs to an unsustainable level. He also proposed to turn more of the program over to commercial insurers. As I wrote then, ‘Put simply, he’s proposing to privatize Medicare.’”

Are we really so callous, so lacking in empathy, that we truly want to cut programs for the less fortunate to embellish the wealth of the richest people in the United States? Are we really so twisted that we are willing to take away accrued benefits for the elderly, who paid into the systems for years, because Republicans want to shift the responsibility for paydown of the deficit incurred to make the rich so much richer to those at the bottom and at the middle? Who are we?!

            I’m Peter Dekom, and if Donald J Trump is still a presidential candidate in November, and if any of the above means anything to you, VOTE!