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Democrats could hardly believe their good fortune. During his State of the Union address last week, President Joe Biden vowed to stop Republicans who “want to put Social Security on the chopping block,” and just four days later, Donald Trump clumsily stepped on a highly relevant rake.
“[T]here is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting,” the former president said during an on-air phone interview on CNBC.
After Biden and his party pounced, the presumptive GOP nominee apparently thought it’d be in his interests to clean up the mess. Politico reported:
Former President Donald Trump is cleaning up comments he made last week, in which he seemingly entertained the idea of cutting Social Security. In an interview with Breitbart News, published on Thursday, Trump insisted he would not touch the social insurance program, nor would he pursue cuts to Medicare.
“I will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare,” the Republican told the conservative outlet. “We’ll have to do it elsewhere. But we’re not going to do anything to hurt them.”
In context, when Trump said officials will “have to do it elsewhere,” he appeared to be referring to cutting federal spending and addressing the budget deficit.
On the surface, this might appear to resolve the matter. The former president appeared to use categorical language about the popular social-insurance programs, effectively taking them off the table. For Social Security and Medicare proponents, this must’ve seemed encouraging.
But just below the surface, it’s not nearly that simple.
For example, Trump now wants voters to believe he’ll “never” take steps to undermine Social Security and Medicare, but as a candidate in 2016, the Republican made identical campaign promises, which he proceeded to break.
“I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid,” Trump declared in 2015. “Every other Republican’s going to cut, and even if they wouldn’t, they don’t know what to do because they don’t know where the money is. I do. I do.”
Once in office, he changed direction. As a Washington Post report summarized last year, “His avowed stance, however, is at odds with Trump’s own record as president: Each of his White House budget proposals included cuts to Social Security and Medicare programs.”
Also note, while Trump used to include assurances about Medicaid, his three-pronged promise has evolved into a two-pronged promise, leaving little doubt that the Medicaid cuts he proposed during his term would remain a priority in a second term.
But I also find myself stuck on his “we’ll have to do it elsewhere” rhetoric. Trump would have voters believe he’ll (a) cut the deficit; (b) increase defense spending; (c) cut taxes; and (d) leave Social Security and Medicare alone.
As the former president — who added nearly $8 trillion to the national debt in just four years — really ought to know, that’s literally impossible. The budget arithmetic simply does not work.
Why should voters who care about Social Security and Medicare take note? In part because Trump is making promises that he’s very likely to break, and in part because of the broader political circumstances.
As The New York Times’ Paul Krugman explained in his latest column, “Trump gives no indication here that he really knows what he’s talking about. What that could mean in practice, however, is that if he gets back to the White House, he’ll do for Social Security and Medicare what he did in his almost successful attempt to replace Obamacare: leave the drafting of legislation to right-wing ideologues who do understand how the programs work — and who want to gut them.”
Let no one say the public wasn’t warned of the dangers ahead.