During President Biden’s Feb. 7 State of the Union address he called out, Republicans on their plan to sunset or make cuts to Social Security and Medicare in the debt ceiling limit and budget negotiations. When Republicans shouted, “liar” and jeered him, the president said he took that as a sign that cuts to the nation’s social safety net programs would be “off the table.”
Fast forward to June 15, when the 175-member Republican Study Committee, of which three-quarters of its members are House GOP representatives, released its proposed 2024 budget that would cut Social Security and Medicare. The Republicans want to gradually raise Social Security’s full retirement age up from the current level of 67 to 69 for those born in 1960 or later. On Medicare, the GOP plan would require disabled Americans to wait longer before getting benefits and convert Medicare from a government program into a privatized voucher system, eliminating guaranteed affordable access to Medicare for the nation’s senior citizens. All this while slashing taxes for the rich.
Republicans explain that their proposed cuts are necessary to address an expected shortfall in the Social Security Trust Fund as soon as 2035 due to the aging of the U.S. population and declining birth rates.
But opponents of cuts maintain that removing the $160,200 income cap on the amount of wages subject to the Social Security payroll tax would easily fix the shortfall problem. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, who explains why the Republicans’ proposed cuts to the nation’s social safety net programs are unnecessary, what policy changes are needed to address Social Security’s long-term sustainability and strengthen the program for decades to come.
ALEX LAWSON: It’s really amazing how the establishment corporate media distorts this story. You know, all through the debt ceiling—which is actually what we were most focused on—the clearest present danger to Social Security, which is now off the table, was the debt ceiling. And throughout that whole fight, we had to fight the corporate media because they’re like, “Well, we don’t really know what the Republicans want.”
And you’re like, What do you mean? They write it down. You go to the RNC budget, the Republican Study Committee budget they were talking about, this is not new. This is the same thing they’ve put forward for over a decade. This document is the belief system. The guiding ideology of the modern Republican party is the document that we’re talking about, the RSC budget.
And, you know, there are a lot of details, but it really comes down to stealing working people’s money by cutting our earned benefits. Right?
If you cut Social Security, you’re just reaching into my pocket and stealing my money because I paid for those benefits. So if you’re taking the benefits away, you’re just stealing my money and then handing that money to the ultra-rich in the form of tax handouts.
I want to make it clear that, you know, the stakes that we’re fighting for right now are not in radically rewriting the system so that working people are advantaged over capital.
Right now, we’re still just trying to slow down the looting of the American people by capital in its guise as private equity or Wall Street banks.
But all of it is this fundamental fight that’s been, as you know, going on forever between labor—people—and capital—money. The ultra rich.
And so that’s what the RSC document lays out, really clear. The Republicans are the party that fundamentally, fundamentally advances the privileges and corruption of the billionaire class over working people.
And that’s not to say that the Democrats then are the exact opposite. And for too long it was it wasn’t clear on things like Social Security. But that’s where we’re winning.
Now it’s become more and more and more clear to the American people, and especially to elected Democrats, that they need to stand up strongly for these programs that are Democratic programs to begin with. So it is really heartening to see President Biden out there really strongly on Social Security and Medicare, standing against these cuts, ripping the RSC budget to shreds when it came out.
I think the real challenge is still communicating to the American people how simple the fight is right now and getting past the propaganda of the corporate media.
SCOTT HARRIS: Alex, the Republicans talk about a timeline where Social Security will run out of money or people’s benefits will be cut back because the flow of money into the system is decreasing. If you could briefly discuss the alternatives to cutting benefits and raising retirement age and all that, what is the clear and very easy way to make Social Security and Medicare solvent for many decades to come?
ALEX LAWSON: And not just solvent, but we can expand the system. It’s as simple as taxing rich people. Now, in the case of Social Security, what that means is there’s currently a cap. The more money you make right now, the less you pay into Social Security. The vast majority of the American people pay into Social Security on 100 percent of their income.
But a billionaire, a person who makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year, is only paying into Social Security on about the first $160,200. And so what we do is get rid of that cap. We scrap the cap. We have millionaires and billionaires pay the same rate as the rest of us into Social Security on all of their income, including all that tax haven stuff and all that. Just all of it. And we do that, we can expand benefits.
The only real plan, the only serious plan on Social Security that’s out there right now is from the Democrats.
And in the Senate, we have Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren’s plan. It increases benefits for every single person in this country by $200 a month and other increases targeted and across the board increases and it pays for it by going after the cheats in the system, who are the billionaires. They’re cheating the system. They’re paying in many cases, absolutely no taxes. And in fact, they’re just hoovering up money.
For more information, visit Social Security Works at socialsecurityworks.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Alex Lawson (28:27) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
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