Voters Overwhelmingly Oppose the Creation of a Commission to Cut Social Security and Medicare
By Nancy J. Altman
Soon after the passage of a deal to raise the nation’s debt limit, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy went on Fox News. During the interview, McCarthy complained that President Biden had “walled off” Social Security and Medicare in the debt limit negotiations. McCarthy then announced his plans to “make some people uncomfortable” by creating a commission to “look at the entire budget,” including Social Security and Medicare.
McCarthy and his fellow Republicans have made it clear that raising taxes on the wealthy is not an option. When Republicans say they want to create a commission to “look at” Social Security and Medicare, they mean one thing: benefit cuts.
Fortunately, the American people are not fooled by this effort to cut benefits without leaving fingerprints. New polling from Data for Progress shows that a commission tasked with cutting Social Security and Medicare is extremely unpopular with voters. Seventy-two percent of likely voters, including 65 percent of Republicans, oppose the creation of such a commission. Two-thirds of voters say that if their member of Congress joined the commission, it would make them less likely to support that member for reelection.
The Republican Study Committee (RSC), a group that counts over 70 percent of House Republicans as members, recently released its 2024 budget proposal. Unlike its much more straightforward 2023 budget, the new budget includes the same cuts but uses opaque language to propose raising the retirement age and slashing middle class Social Security benefits. It also creates a path to privatize Medicare, trading the program’s guarantee for an inadequate coupon to purchase insurance on the private market.
Even as it calls for these massive benefit cuts, the RSC budget stresses the need for “bipartisanship.” McCarthy did the same in his Fox News interview, insisting that his proposed commission would be “bipartisan, on both sides of the aisle.”
There’s a reason Republicans want Democratic cover for their plans to cut Social Security and Medicare: These plans are massively unpopular with voters across the political spectrum. Only 3 percent of voters, and 2 percent of Republicans, support cutting Social Security benefits to reduce the national debt.
Last November, Republicans sabotaged their projected red wave by being too upfront about their plans to cut Social Security and Medicare. They apparently don’t want to be so honest this time around.
Voters correctly understand that Social Security and Medicare are earned benefits. Contrary to the claims of McCarthy and other Republicans, Social Security doesn’t contribute a single penny to the national debt. It is fully funded by the contributions of American workers and other dedicated revenue. Indeed, it currently has a $2.8 trillion accumulated surplus.
Republican politicians are claiming that there’s a need for bipartisan benefit cuts by fearmongering about Social Security’s modest shortfall, still a decade away. If Congress does nothing, that shortfall would lead to an automatic 20 percent cut in benefits. But the Republican “solution” is even larger benefit cuts. Cutting benefits now to avoid cutting them later isn’t a solution at all.
Fortunately, Democrats have a real solution: In light of the nation’s looming retirement crisis, where too many Americans fear that they must work until they die, Democrats want to increase benefits. In light of immoral and destabilizing income and wealth inequality — a development former President Barack Obama called “the defining challenge of our time” — Democrats want to close the modest shortfall and pay for expanding benefits by requiring millionaires and billionaires to begin contributing their fair share.
Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have introduced the Social Security Expansion Act, which does just that. It expands benefits across the board by $200 per month and ensures that all benefits can be paid in full and on time through the end of the century and beyond. No one with income less than $250,000 would pay even a penny more.
Similarly, Representative John Larson will soon introduce Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust. Under his plan, no one earning under $400,000 would pay a penny more. The additional revenue from the wealthiest among us would be used to strengthen and expand the program. In the last Congress, Social Security 2100 was cosponsored by about 90 percent of Larson’s fellow House Democrats.
These are bills that can go through regular order for Congress to vote on in the light of day. That’s because they are overwhelmingly supported by voters — Democrats, Republicans, Independents. Those are truly bipartisan proposals.
The only reason for a fast-track, closed-door commission is to trample the will of voters by cutting benefits. Republicans are betting that if both parties go behind closed doors and emerge with benefit cuts, voters won’t know whom to blame.
The Biden Administration has rightfully referred to a closed-door commission as a “death panel” for Social Security and Medicare. Biden should lead Democrats in refusing to give Republicans any bipartisan cover for their commission. Instead, Democrats should stand united in support of protecting and expanding, never cutting, Social Security’s modest benefits.
While Democrats have proposed a number of Social Security bills that expand benefits without cuts, many in the mainstream media have dismissed these steps as somehow not real. To make the media see the light, President Biden should unite his party behind a single plan.
When Senate and House Republicans inevitably block action on Biden’s plan and refuse to offer a counterproposal, the media won’t be able to ignore the developments. The American people will see clearly who stands with them and who is against them.
As this polling makes clear, politicians who want to win will have to listen to the voters on this issue that affects all of us. That is the road to successful legislation, enacted in the daylight. The last thing we need is one more closed-door commission organized by politicians who want to evade political accountability.
Nancy J. Altman is the President of Social Security Works (@SSWorks).