The Third Rail — Social Security; Something for Everyone in Yesterday’s Biden Hearing
Author: Greg Valliere
August 1, 2023
WHO HAS A PLAN? Donald Trump doesn’t; he would not touch any Social Security or Medicare benefits. Joe Biden has no position in his party’s latest budget proposal; when asked, Biden says he would deal with solvency issues by raising taxes on wealthy recipients, which has no chance of passage in Congress.
FOUR REPUBLICANS ARE WILLING to touch the infamous third rail — Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and Mike Pence have endorsed reform, and in the past Chris Christie has called for benefit reductions. All four have been vague on details but have emphasized that their reforms would apply to relatively young workers, not individuals nearing retirement age or, crucially, already in retirement.
DeSANTIS HAS MADE SOME VERY CONTROVERISAL STATEMENTS this summer, but we give him credit for asserting that “talking about making changes for people in their 30s and their 40s so the program’s viable — that’s something I think we’re going to need to discuss.” Pence responded: “I’m glad to see another candidate in this primary has been willing to step up and talk about that.”
IF NO REFORMS ARE ENACTED, Social Security benefits for an estimated 60 million people may have to be cut by 20 percent starting in 2033, according to the most recent report of the Boards of Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. Medicare also faces automatic benefit cuts as soon as 2031, the report says.
OUR BOTTOM LINE is that there’s little chance for reform any time soon of Social Security COLAs, taxes or benefits. And we don’t think either party’s platform will target young workers because that could produce a brutal pushback by young voters. Eventually there will have to be aggressive means testing of Social Security and Medicare — but probably not until the next decade.
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SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE IN BIDEN HEARING: Based on leaks that emerged from a House Oversight Committee hearing yesterday, there were two themes: First, President Biden clearly was not truthful when he claimed in recent months that he never was involved in Hunter Biden’s business activities. There’s little doubt that the then-Vice President joined speaker phone meetings with his son’s clients.
SECOND, IT DOESN’T APPEAR that there’s a smoking gun — a pledge, for example, by the Vice President to directly intervene in a specific issue in exchange for money sent to his son. Joe Biden was careful to keep the conversations from getting that explicit, based on what we know now. Was this a case of influence peddling? Probably. Was it impeachable? There’s virtually no chance that two-thirds of the Senate would vote to convict.
THE MOST CONSERVATIVE MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, are calling for impeachment of President Biden, but most of the Republicans we’ve talked with are extremely leery of that tactic, which could backfire, as it did in the Bill Clinton and Donald Trump impeachments. But this story will persist, and more disclosures are possible.
THIS MUCH APPEARS CLEAR: Donald Trump has a devastating sound bite — “the Biden crime family” — which Trump will repeat ad nauseum, in an attempt to deflect attention away from the former president’s next indictment, which is expected in Georgia later this month.
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