XPost: alt.politics.trump, sac.politics, alt.politics.republicans   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns, alt.fan.sean-hannity, alt.politics.economics   
   From: jdyoung2@ymail.com   
      
   Comments:   
      
   DeadlyOne   
   25 January, 2023   
      
   These are NOT entitlements, they are EARNED BENEFITS, paid for by   
   MANDATORY WITHHOLDING from a persons wages over the years.   
      
   REMOVE the cap, and make the withholding apply to ALL income.   
      
   AND, most important, Congress needs to REPAY what it "borrowed"over the   
   years, with interest, and take no more from these funds.   
      
   THEN there would be no NEED to reduce the BENEFITS people have already   
   paid for.   
      
   House Republicans have alluded to cuts they want to make to the federal   
   budget for months.   
      
   They're becoming more explicit about those cuts involving Medicare and   
   Social Security funds.   
      
   They've indicated that they're willing to leverage raising the debt   
   ceiling to secure cuts. Not raising the ceiling could spell financial   
   disaster.   
      
   After being evasive about their plans for entitlement programs like Social   
   Security and Medicare in the months leading up to midterms, the House GOP   
   has begun to confirm its intention to cut spending on both.   
      
   That's according to The Washington Post's Tony Romm, who reported that   
   Republican lawmakers are willing to use the debt ceiling as a bargaining   
   chip in order to get the Biden administration to cave on spending cuts to   
   Medicare and Social Security. Failing to raise the debt ceiling by the   
   summer could cause the US to default on its debt for the first time in   
   history, the consequences of which would be dire.   
      
   "We have no choice but to make hard decisions," Rep. Kevin Hern of   
   Oklahoma, leader of the conservative Republican Study Committee, told The   
   Post. "Everybody has to look at everything."   
      
   The Post reported that in the past few days, a group of Republican   
   lawmakers have pushed for House panels that would recommend changes to   
   Social Security and Medicare.   
      
   Democrats control the Senate, and Republicans only have a slight majority   
   in the House. But it's enough of a majority to give them power over the   
   debt ceiling, a law restricting the amount of money the government can   
   borrow to pay its bills.   
      
   And that's on top of the leverage that the most conservative members of   
   the party have on the recently elected Speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin   
   McCarthy. Conservative holdouts kept the vote for Speaker going a   
   historically long time, and reports suggest that the concessions McCarthy   
   made included promoting cuts to entitlement programs.   
      
   GOP leaders gave a slide presentation to Republican House members on   
   Tuesday outlining their budget and spending priorities, CNN reported.   
   According to a screenshot of the presentation viewed by CNN, the spending   
   priorities were vague but mentioned reforms to "mandatory spending   
   programs" that could include Social Security and Medicare.   
      
   Additionally, Republicans have proposed converting Medicaid and Affordable   
   Care Act subsidies to block grants, which would cut spending by $3.6   
   trillion over 10 years.   
      
   "That would obviously be strongly opposed by the Senate and the White   
   House," Edwin Park, a public policy professor at Georgetown University who   
   focuses on health policy, told Insider, but "the holdouts were clear that   
   they would hold raising the debt limit hostage to major spending cuts, and   
   it is possible that smaller, damaging cuts to Medicaid could be on the   
   table, even if the most draconian cuts are dropped."   
      
   GOP plan to leverage debt ceiling is a threat to "trigger global economic   
   chaos"   
   Although Republicans have been vague about the budgetary cuts they want in   
   recent months, it's becoming clearer that Social Security and Medicare are   
   among their major targets, even as both programs are extremely popular   
   among Americans.   
      
   So popular, in fact, that former President Donald Trump recently warned   
   the GOP to keep them out of debt ceiling negotiations.   
      
   The fight to raise the debt ceiling isn't a new problem for Congress.   
   Historically, the limit on the amount of money the government can borrow   
   has been raised in a bipartisan fashion. But in the last decade,   
   Republicans have begun entertaining using the debt ceiling as a bargaining   
   chip to accomplish their own policy goals.   
      
   The White House, and Democratic lawmakers, have criticized the GOP using   
   the debt limit to implement cuts to Medicare and Social Security.   
      
   "They claim their plan to use the debt ceiling to trigger global economic   
   chaos is about fiscal responsibility. It's not," Massachusetts Sen.   
   Elizabeth Warren wrote in a Boston Globe op-ed this month. "The House   
   Republican plan for the debt ceiling is about protecting the wealthy and   
   the well-connected from paying their fair share in taxes — nothing more   
   and nothing less."   
      
   https://news.yahoo.com/republicans-plans-slash-social-security-   
   103000327.html   
      
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