At least for today. From CNN:
Former President Donald Trump on Monday suggested he was open to making cuts to Social Security and Medicare after opposing touching the entitlement programs and attacking his GOP presidential primary rivals over the issue.
Trump was asked in an interview with CNBC whether he had changed his outlook on how to handle entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in order to tackle the national debt.
“There is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements,” Trump said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
He added: “There’s tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do.”
I agree there are a lot of things one can do. I’m pretty sure his idea would be something along the lines of this idea from Wisconsin’s Senator Theoden.
You can make your own assessments here, using the CRFB interactive utility on Social Security.
Trump’s staff later accused the “losers” at CNBC of “truncating” the interview claiming that all Trump intends to cut is waste and fraud. That has been a constant claim of right-wing budgrt-cutters since Reagan, if not earlier. It’s nonsense – there isn’t enoughwaste and fraud to make much difference.
“claiming that all Trump intends to cut is waste and fraud.”
Remember Bruce Hall during COVID calling efforts to keep granny alive a waste and a fraud. MAGA!
If only Bruce’s grandparents had used condoms we could possibly have seen a much faster evolutionary advancement. Oh well…….. We can hope since Bruce amazingly (no sarcasm) survived Covid-19 that he instead fatally inhales lots of burned motor oil on a recalled Ford product before more damage is done to the chromosome pool.
Social Security is the greatest U.S. government program ever put in place and allows millions of older adults and people with disabilities to live a baseline life of dignity. (Remember for those under age 65 – these are means tested benefits – you can’t have more than $2000 in assets and that is checked monthly.)
Unless you are a multi-millionaire – we will all depend on Social Security when we retire. And – check your paystubs folks – you and your employer are contributing to this! In some ways – it can be considered a government-backed life insurance policy. Oh geez – that’s why it is an “entitlement.” (a dirty word to the GOP)
The Republicans have been trying to cut Social Security since FDR and the Democrats put it in place. Also when do the pundits start reporting that Donald Trump has no policy goals beyond keeping himself out of jail and corruptly enrichment himself (that’s what he did during his administration – remember the two impeachments and all the money that flowed to his resorts and the money that flowed to family members in his administration – Ivanka and Jared.). Trump will just repeat whatever right-wing talking point a Fox News squawker puts in front of him.
Also – just to get this on record “President Biden looks forward to working with Congress to protect and strengthen Social Security, based on these key principles: No benefit cuts. The President opposes any proposal to cut benefits, as well as proposals to privatize Social Security.” https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/11/fact-sheet-the-presidents-budget-protects-and-strengthens-social-security-and-medicare/#:~:text=As%20detailed%20in%20the%20President's,proposals%20to%20privatize%20Social%20Security.
“By unleashing American energy, slashing job-killing regulations, and adopting pro-growth America First tax and trade policies, President Trump will quickly rebuild the greatest economy in history and put Social Security and Medicare on a stronger footing for generations to come,” Leavitt said.
Why does this remind me of the Kudlow show?
Tax wages above $400,000 and means testing on benefits for higher earners sure brings that blue line and red line much closer together. Then you add on “Limit spousal benefits for high earners”, they get pretty damned close. But voters knew this clear back to the Reagan years. Most American voters never gave a damn about deficits or debt. They just like to hear themselves talk about it in self-righteous tones.
Here is the question and answer from the CNBC transcript. More proof Trump is spiraling toward severe dementia:
KERNEN: There are stark policy differences obviously Mr. President, but one thing that I think that at least the perception is that there’s not a whole lot of difference between what you think we should do with entitlements or non-discretionary spending and what President Biden is proposing. It’s almost a third rail of politics. And we’ve got to what a $33, $34 trillion total debt built up and very little we can do in terms of cutting spending. Discretionary is not going to help. Have you changed your, your outlook on how to handle entitlements Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Mr. President? Seems like something has to be done, or else we’re going to be stuck at 120% of debt to GDP forever.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: So first of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements, tremendous bad management of entitlements. There’s tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do. So I don’t necessarily agree with the statement. I know that they’re going to end up weakening social security because the country is weak. And let’s take a look at outside of the stock market, are, we’re going through hell. People are going through hell. If they have and I believe the number is 50%. They say 32 and 33%. I believe we have a cumulative inflation of over 50%, that means people are, you know, they have to make more than 50% more over a fairly short period of time to stay up. They’ve gotten routed. The middle class in our country has been routed and the middle class largely built our country and they have been treated very, very badly with policy. When I was president, I was doing a job, we’re going to start to pay off debt. We were drill baby drill. We were producing oil but we were going at a much higher level oil and gas. We were doing, you know, we were third when I started and when they ended we were one by a longshot and we were very close, we’re energy independence, we’re very close to becoming energy dominant Joe, we’re gonna be dominant so dominant, like double what Saudi Arabia and Russia were doing. And we were on that path. We were gonna be paying down debt. We were doing, we were doing a lot of things and then we got hit with Covid. We did a fantastic job with Covid. But nobody, nobody wins with Covid. I guess China found that out because they also really got hit very hard also, but nobody wins with Covid. And so we had to get to we had to do other things. We had to help. You know, if I didn’t do the expenditures that we didn’t do the kinds of things we did for the economy, we would add in 1929 type depression. And I had to say out in front of it, and we did we did a great job on that and we did with all of the things we’re coming up with Regeneron doing so much else, getting all because you know we had empty when I came in, we had empty, I call them empty cupboards. We had empty shelves, we didn’t have equipment, we didn’t have the gowns, we didn’t have the ventilators. We didn’t have anything. This country wasn’t prepared for a thing like that. And I’m not even blaming anybody in that. Because, you know, when when it came, nobody thought the pandemic would ever happen again. It sounds like an ancient’s problem, not a problem that you’d have you know at that time, you know, in modern, very modern age. It was like an ancient thing. We you know, who, who would ever show I’m not blaming anybody, but we had empty cupboards, and I got them stocked and I got them stocked fast. And we did a great job with it. Never got credit. I got credit for the greatest economy. I got credit for foreign policy. I got credit for knocking out ISIS and not going into wars. But we beat ISIS, but I never got the credit for having done a great job with that.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/11/cnbc-transcript-former-president-of-the-united-states-donald-trump-speaks-with-cnbcs-squawk-box-today-.html
Did Joe Kernen remember to suck trump’s toe jam clean from between the toes like a good fluffer???
The problem with this rambling word salat is that the MAGA cult members think its just them being to dumb to understand the sentences from their demi-God, not that it is him unable to transmit a coherent message. For a true cult leader it is much more important to say things with conviction than to say things that make sense.
Trumps handlers were quick to say that what he meant was to cut waste and fraud, not benefits. They did not explain why he didn’t do that when he was first around in the White House. That will be the first attack against all his claims that he will fix all the worlds problems if we elect him – why didn’t he do that when he was in office last time?