GOP has a new plan to kill off Medicare and Social Security

[marmar]

GOP has a new plan to kill off Medicare and Social Security
Trump has repeatedly vowed to defend these landmark safety-net programs. It was another lie

By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published June 13, 2026 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) One of the least remarked-upon chapters in the Republicans’ ghastly Project 2025 document dealt with their plan to cut Social Security and Medicare, ostensibly to fix the impending trust fund shortfall and eliminate the national deficit all at once. The reason hardly anyone talked about it is that if there’s one thing we know about Republicans, from the so-called moderates to the most extreme MAGA true believers, it’s that they want to do away with those commie pinko programs once and for all.

But there’s a problem: Nearly all Americans depend on those commie pinko programs to some extent, including many Republican voters. So the ideologues are always forced to couch their desire to slash federal spending to the bone in some version of “We have to kill the programs in order to save them.” Nobody buys it, and the world moves on.

....(snip)....

But that was just the latest attack in a long history. The Heritage Foundation has been putting out these policy blueprints for decades, and every single one of them features some harebrained scheme to degrade or eliminate the retirement programs. They’ve proposed letting younger workers “opt out” of paying into Social Security or collecting it, which would bankrupt the programs in record time. They’ve pushed for total privatization and means testing, which would break the universal compact.

....(snip)....

Well, it looks like they’re gearing up for it. House Speaker Mike Johnson said this to a conservative radio host this week:

The largest spending items, the reason we’re in trouble, are because over 74 percent of federal spending is on autopilot — mandatory spending, that is, your entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and things like Social Security — they have to be adjusted and fixed. We have a plan to do that next year, and it’s critical because we’re at $40 trillion-plus in debt. At some point, you get into a hole so deep you can’t climb out of it, so desperate times call for desperate measures.

Maybe we could think about reversing some of those tax cuts for billionaires Johnson and Trump love so much. Or we could put a stop to Trump’s foreign adventures, which are costing the taxpayers untold billions. The Senate Armed Services Committee voted to approve Trump’s $1.15 trillion Pentagon budget last week, and Congress has appropriated $518 billion over the last year for the Department of Homeland Security to deport working people who are paying into Social Security with no prospect of ever collecting benefits. Maybe they could think about dialing back some of this reckless spending on wars and police actions that nobody wants and are making everyone poorer and less secure. ...................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/06/13/gop-has-a-new-plan-to-kill-off-medicare-and-social-security/

[Diamond_Dog]

1. Social Security is NOT an entitlement!

[Cirsium]

6. Yes it is

Somehow Republicans have convinced people that the word means the opposite of what it actually means. The word means something you have a right to, by law or contract.

[modrepub]

2. I Detest How My 401k Funds Are Set Up

and that's ultimately what the Wall Street/Corporate hacks want; access to a huge pot of $ without allowing the owners any say in how corporations are run.

Folks who put their retirement $ into 401ks almost always invest them in mutual funds who in turn invest them into individual stocks. What you lose in doing this as opposed to directly buying stocks is your proxy vote. If everyone actually owned the stocks directly instead of handing the money over to mutual funds, then we'd all get a say in how companies are run. For example, maybe corporate executive packages wouldn't be so generous if all of us exercised our proxy vote and said "no". As far as I can tell most mutual funds are pretty passive on stock oversight, letting the board do as they want unless something goes haywire.

Now I do know there as some socially responsible mutual funds and some state pension systems are more active in corporate governance. But I've always wondered how things would go if regular folks with 401ks actually had a say in the companies they own shares in (through mutual funds).

[Americanme]

3. We've been doing this backwards.

Let's take care of Americans first, by funding Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Then see if they want to tax the rich to pay for the defense budget.

[JBTaurus83]

4. If Dems take congress

Bills to save these programs should be introduced weekly with a media blitz. Make them block the bills over and over.

[MIButterfly]

5. Why do these people begrudge anybody except the rich having anything?

Why are they so evil? I worked 50+ years to have Social Security and Medicare when I retired. I was promised that and I earned it. I held up my end of the bargain. Why do they want to take it away from me and all the other seniors? It's not right.

And don't they dare blame the $40-trillion+ deficit on programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security instead of their own gross incompetence and wastefulness which is the the true cause of the deficit. Reflecting pool? DJT's name on the Kennedy Center? Bulldozing the White House to have a ballroom and a bunker? UFC event on the front lawn? Building an Arc de Triomphe? Needless war in Iran? Not to mention their irrational and rabid insistence that millionaires, billionaires and corporations not pay their fair share of taxes. Hell, not even their fair share, they want them to pay absolutely nothing so the hoi polloi can hurry up and die and stop being a drain on society.

GTFO with that stupid shit.

[madinmaryland]

7. And 45 years of reckless and irresponsible tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations.

Get rid of those and we might be able to start paying down the national debt.