Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Is Trump Going To Cut Social Security And Medicare

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Fact Check: Trump Repeats Out

Full story behind commercial that claims President Trump will cut Social Security and Medicare

President Trump, arguing that Americans wouldn’t be safe under Joe Biden, repeated a claim Mike Pence made Wednesday, quoting the former vice president as saying, “Yes, absolutely,” as a response to whether he’d broadly support cutting funding for law enforcement.

“When asked if he supports cutting police funding, Joe Biden replied, yes, absolutely,” Trump said Thursday night.

The accusation repeats, nearly verbatim, a false claim touted in a series of ads being run by the Trump campaign and by the pro-Trump PAC America First Action.

In one such ad, a narrator discusses how “the radical left wing of the Democratic Party has taken control” and says, “Joe Biden stands with them and embraces their policies defunding the police.”


Biden is then heard saying, “Yes, absolutely.” Another ad follows the same pattern, with a narrator saying Biden supports “reducing police funding” and Biden saying, “Yes, absolutely.”

The remark in both ads that Pence cited is taken out of context. It is from a , in which Biden is responding to a question from progressive activist Ady Barkan about whether some government funding for law enforcement should redirected to other areas, like increased social services.

“Yes, absolutely,” Biden replies.

Biden has explicitly said he doesn’t support “defunding” the police. In an interview with CBS News, he said he instead supports “conditioning federal aid to police, based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness.”

Vice President Pence Talks Law And Order On 3rd Night Of Gop Convention

Pence’s tack reflects a larger Republican strategy for the convention and the broader Trump re-election campaign that tries to focus voters on a generic fear of the unknown rather than problems at hand. It is, of course, Trump and Pence who have presided over the coronavirus crisis and its devastating impact on the economy, the civil unrest in the wake of police killings of Black men, women and children, and the emboldening of white supremacist militia groups.


Are Eliminating The Tax And Ending Social Security Equivalent

In defense of its posts, Social Security Works argued that advocating for termination of the payroll tax and termination of Social Security are the same. The payroll tax is known as the Federal Insurance Contribution Act tax, after all.

Linda Benesch, a spokeswoman for Social Security Works, told USA TODAY that there is “not” a distinction between cutting Social Security and cutting its dedicated source of funding.

“Nearly 90% of Social Security’s funding comes from payroll contributions, and if Trump terminated payroll contributions, the other funding sources would be insufficient,” Benesch wrote in an emailed statement. “By law, Social Security is forbidden from paying benefits if there is not sufficient revenue to cover the cost.”

Nancy Altman, the president of Social Security Works, told USA TODAY that the Social Security trust fund has a surplus of $2.9 trillion only enough to last three years without new tax revenue.

“The payroll taxes bring in close to a trillion dollars every year, and the benefits cost around a trillion dollars,” Altman said. “By 2023, there’s no more money in the trust fund.”


But Altman admitted that the administration’s actions to date “aren’t going to end Social Security.”

It’s what Trump has said he will do terminate the tax that they believe is equivalent to a promise to end Social Security.

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Trump Speech Missing Several Of His Favorite Talking Points

Shannon Pettypiece

While President Trump launched attack after attack on Joe Biden, he left out a number of his favorite topics of criticism in his acceptance speech.


He made no mention of mail-in voting, which he has alleged, without evidence, will lead to widespread voter fraud and could prevent the country from ever knowing the result of the election. There is no evidence that mail-in voting is at risk for fraud.

Trump also avoided bringing up Bidens son Hunter, a line of attack his campaign believed at one point would be central to their takedown of Biden. He also made no mention of Bidens running mate Kamala Harris, who his campaign has struggled to find an effective way to criticize.

With protests raging outside the White House gates and in Wisconsin over racial injustice, Trump made only a passing mention of race and there was no mention of racism.

Trump Keeps Proposing Entitlement Cuts And Then Denying That He Did So

FARK.com: (10734296) Here it is, folks. Trump is going to run for re ...

In 2015 and 16, Trump differentiated himself from the rest of the Republican presidential hopefuls by campaigning on a vow to not cut entitlements.

Im not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and Im not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid, Trump told the Daily Signal, a conservative publication affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, in 2015.


As his budget proposals indicate, this promise was an empty one. Trump, however, seems to realize that cutting entitlements is a political loser for him, and as a result has continued to make assertions about preserving them that are at odds with reality.

All Republicans support people with pre-existing conditions, and if they dont, they will after I speak to them. I am in total support. Also, Democrats will destroy your Medicare, and I will keep it healthy and well!

Donald J. Trump

Last month, however, Trump seemed to have a moment of radical honesty when he told CNBC during an interview conducted in Davos that at some point entitlement cuts will be on the table.

CNBC: Will entitlements ever be on your plate ?TRUMP: “At some point they will be”CNBC: But you said you wouldn’t do that in the pastTRUMP: “We also have assets that we never had”

Aaron Rupar

Those comments created a negative stir, so the very next day Trump tried to walk them back.

Democrats are going to destroy your Social Security. I have totally left it alone, as promised, and will save it!

Donald J. Trump

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Republicans Will Do Anything To Cut Social Security And Medicare

Joining his Republican colleagues, House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy is making clear Republicans are willing to threaten the financial security of our economy to gut Social Security and Medicare.


In a new interview, McCarthy threatened to put the financial stability of the economy at risk if Republicans take the majority in November.

Kevin McCarthy: You cant just continue down the path to keep spending and adding to the debt. And if people want to make a debt ceiling , just like anything else, there comes a point in time where, okay, well provide you more money, but you got to change your current behavior. Were not just going to keep lifting your credit card limit, right? And we should seriously sit together and where can we eliminate some waste? Where can we make the economy grow stronger?

In what should have been a softball question, McCarthy did not rule out using cuts to Social Security and Medicare as a bargaining chip.

Punchbowl: We asked McCarthy if he intended to try to reform entitlements as part of the debt ceiling debate. McCarthy said he wouldnt predetermine anything.

When Republicans threatened a stunt over the debt ceiling in 2021, it was estimated that a credit default would have cost up to 6 million jobs and wiped out $15 trillion in household wealth.

But Republicans did not have a problem raising the debt ceiling THREE TIMES during Trumps presidency.

Why The Fate Of Medicare And Social Security Is A Midterm Issue

The fate of Social Security and Medicare is back in the spotlight less than two weeks before the midterms.


The White House and Democrats have made both entitlements central to their closing pitch to voters, sounding the alarm that a Republican majority in the House would look to cut programs that millions of Americans rely on in a bid to reduce spending.

While some GOP lawmakers have not shied away from talk of altering those programs, many in the party have dismissed the Democratic attacks as a ploy designed to shift attention away from persistent inflation and broader concerns about the economy.

Democrats in recent days have zeroed in on a particularly bleak scenario: that a Republican-led House would hold the debt ceiling hostage, threatening a government default and economic crisis if the Biden administration does not agree to spending cuts.

put us in default unless we yield to their demands to cut Social Security and Medicare. Theyre so determined to cut Social Security and Medicare, theyre willing to take down the economy over it, Biden told supporters in Syracuse, N.Y., on Thursday. There is nothing, nothing that will create more chaos or do more damage to the American economy than that happening, if it were to happen.

A June poll from the left-leaning Data for Progress found large majorities wanted to strengthen Social Security, including 73 percent of independents and 73 percent of Republicans.


Emily Brooks contributed reporting.

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Trump Brags About Covid

Dartunorro Clark

Trump spent a portion of his speech praising his response to the coronavirus, which has received scant mentions during the RNC this week while attempting to paint a rosy picture of it being a thing of the past.

He claimed his administration has pioneered treatments and America has among the lowest case fatality rates of any major country in the world. COVID-19 has killed tens of thousands of Americans from the U.S. Virgin Islands to Guam to the continental United States.


It has claimed the lives of more than 180,000 people in the U.S. since the end of February and has neared 6 million cases, according to an NBC News tally.

Watch Ivanka Trumps Full Speech At 2020 Rnc

6 Times Donald Trump Promised Not to Cut Medicare

Ivanka Trumps remarks about the private sector are a reference to the president’s invoking of the Defense Production Act a 1950 law allowing the president to force U.S. businesses to produce materials in the national defense, such as ventilators and medical supplies for health care workers.

But Trump dragged his feet in actually putting the act into effect.

As NBC News noted in a fact check of remarks Tuesday night by Ivanka Trumps brother, Donald Trump Jr., the president had said on March 18 that he was going to invoke the DPA. But he waited more than a week to actually invoke it, finally using it on March 27 to force GM to make ventilators.

During that key stretch, hospitals and doctors implored the administration to use the DPA to increase the capacity to produce needed equipment. In a March 21 letter to Trump, the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association all urged Trump to “immediately use the DPA to increase the domestic production of medical supplies and equipment that hospitals, health systems, physicians, nurses and all front line providers so desperately need.” The first case of COVID-19 in the U.S. was found on Jan. 20, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Sen Tom Cotton: ‘joe Biden Would Return Us To A Weak Dangerous Past’

Five months later, he told NBC News Meet the Press that hed privately told Obama after that meeting had ended to, Follow your instincts, Mr. President and that Biden had wanted him to take one more day to do one more test to see if he was there.

He further leaned into that version in a 2015 interview, saying that I thought he should go, but follow his own instincts. Biden then contradicted his initial claims, saying, imagine if I had said in front of everyone, ‘Don’t go,’ or ‘Go,’ and his decision was a different decision. It undercuts that relationship.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton, in her 2014 book Hard Choices, wrote that Biden remained skeptical about the raid, while Gates in his 2014 book, wrote that he and Biden were both skeptics.

Fact Check: Trump Claims Biden Wants To ‘close All Charter Schools’ That’s False

“Biden also vowed to oppose school choice and close all charter schools, ripping away the ladder of opportunity for Black and Hispanic children,” Trump claimed on Tuesday night.

This is false. The Biden campaign does not oppose charter schools, though they’ve advocated against for-profit charter schools and supported different regulations and oversight of the schools.

And while “school choice” is a buzzy word, it can means different things to different people. Trump supports letting students take federal funds to private schools, something Joe Biden and many Democrats oppose, instead supporting allowing families to make choices within publicly-funded school districts.

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Trump Proposed Cuts But Congress Didnt Bite

As a candidate, Donald Trump promised to make no cuts to Social Security. As president, he has periodically proposed policies that would cut aspects of the program, but so far, none of them have been enacted.

Trump released a proposed budget for 2021, as he had in previous years, that advocated cutting two disability programs administered by the Social Security Administration: Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income. Collectively, the two programs serve millions of Americans.

SSDI and SSI are separate from and smaller than the agency’s main retirement income program. SSDI benefits people with physical and mental conditions that are severe enough to permanently keep them from working. It is funded by Social Security payroll taxes. Meanwhile, SSI payments are limited to low-income Americans senior citizens, or adults or children who are disabled or blind. The payments are funded through general revenue from the Treasury.

Trump’s actions very well should have earned him a Promise Broken. He tried multiple times to break his own promise. But our promise meters are about outcomes. We’ve gotten complaints over the years about promises that couldn’t happen because they were blocked by Congress, but we repeatedly rated them on the outcome.

In this case, a Promise Broken rating would suggest that seniors had their Social Security benefits cut. But that isn’t the case.

Trump Betrays Seniors By Ordering Social Security Cuts

Progressive Charlestown: Most of us saw this coming

The following statement was issued by Richard Fiesta, Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, regarding President Trumps statement that he plans to sign an executive order to cut the payroll tax.

After learning that Democratic and Republican Congressional Leaders would not go along with his harebrained scheme to cut Social Securitys dedicated funding source, President Trump lashed out and announced he would begin dismantling the system single-handedly.

Seniors pay for their housing, food and medicine with their Social Security, putting $1 trillion into our economy every year. Older Americans have earned their benefits through a lifetime of work. Their retirement security should not be put at risk because President Trump is mad at Congress for not bending to his will.

The 4.4 million members of the Alliance for Retired Americans will fight this attempt to gut Social Security, and when voting starts in September we will remember who was willing to defend and protect our earned benefits.

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Trump White House Claim The Tax Relief Will Not Impact Social Security

On Sunday, as he boarded Marine One, Trump told reporters that the executive order deferring payroll taxes for some Americans will “have zero impact on Social Security.”

“We protect Social Security,” he added, according to Fox News.

An official from the White House told USA TODAY on Tuesday that the Social Security Trust Fund is not at risk, since payment deferral is only temporary, and at present, must be paid back early in 2021. The official confirmed, though, that the president called on Congress to make the deferral permanent, thereby eliminating the tax.

Garrett Watson, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, an independent tax policy think tank, told USA TODAY that eliminating the tax is not the same as eliminating Social Security.

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“Strictly speaking, Social Security could be funded using general fund revenue or alternative revenue source, so terminating a tax and terminating a program are distinct things,” he wrote in an email.

“However, it would be reasonable to ask what would happen with the program absent an alternative plan to fund it,” Watson added.

On Wednesday, Trump suggested an alternate source for the first time the general fund of government revenues per Fox Business.

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Fact Check: Ivanka Trump Says Trump’s Actions Have Cut Drug Prices But Drug Prices Have Gone Up

Recently, he took dramatic action cut the cost of prescription drugs despite fielding angry calls from the CEOs of every major pharmaceutical company, the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump said Thursday night during her primetime address. Now, when we see an attack ad paid for by Big Pharma, my dad smiles and says to me, You know were doing something really right if theyre hitting us so hard.

This is misleading. Drug prices have risen during Trumps administration, and gone up steadily during the pandemic. And while Trump has talked up taking decisive action, his orders remain secret.

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Trump Deferred The Tax That Funds Social Security And Vowed To ‘terminate’ The Tax In The Future

The vast majority of Social Security is financed through the payroll tax, according to the Social Security Administration. In 2019, 89% of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance was financed via payroll taxes equal to $944.5 billion.

One of the Aug. 8 executive orders instructed the Treasury Department to allow employers to defer payment of payroll taxes for employees who make less than $100,000 each year.

The deferrals, which may start Sept. 1 and extend through 2020, are intended to allow Americans to use the totality of their income amid the pandemic’s hardships.

The order also instructed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to “explore avenues, including legislation, to eliminate the obligation to pay the taxes deferred” a goal Trump reiterated in remarks after he signed the order.

If Im victorious on November 3rd, I plan to forgive these taxes and make permanent cuts to the payroll tax,” Trump said, per the Washington Post. Im going to make them all permanent.

“In other words, I’ll extend it beyond the end of the year, and terminate the tax,” he added. He reiterated his plan at a press conference on Monday.

“We will be ending that tax. We will be terminating that tax,” Trump said, per a transcript from CNN. “The payroll tax is a big deal for people. It’s a tremendous saving for people. And we’re going to be doing it, and we intend to terminate it at the end of the appropriate period of time.”

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