Work at the mill until you die

That's been the GOP's approach to Social Security our whole lives

If he gets the chance, Donald Trump will cut Social Security and Medicare. I am confident of this not only because Trump has repeatedly said as much¹ and not only because he repeatedly tried to do so when he was president but because a desire to cut Social Security and Medicare has long been central to the Republican cause.

CNN.com headline, 3/11/24

Here’s video of Donald Trump saying yesterday that “there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting” Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. And here’s a video montage of Trump saying similar things in the past. And this isn’t just talk: as Dan Pfeiffer notes, Trump “included budget cuts to Social Security and Medicare every year of his presidency.”

How about Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives?

Johnson served as the chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee from 2019 to 2021. During his tenure, the committee released a budget plan that urged Congress to adopt changes for Medicare and Social Security.

The goal, according to the plan, was “long-term solvency” for the program. But it also included cuts to Medicare and Social Security. […]

Some of the reforms from Johnson's plan from 2020 included adjusting the retirement age until it reaches 69, which would apply to those turning 62 in 2030 and beyond.

Then there’s Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), who Donald Trump has urged to run for Senate Majority Leader. Last year, Scott had to run away from his own proposal to sunset Social Security and Medicare — that is, to end the programs entirely — unless a deeply gridlocked Congress passes new legislation extending them amid political blowback over the radical plan.

This is not some weird new Republican quirk, like pretending to think beer is “woke.” Republicans have been admitting their hatred for America’s most popular and successful retirement programs for as long as I can remember.

Here’s Bob Dole, running for president in 1996 by bragging about having voted against creating Medicare in the first place:² “I was there, fighting the fight, voting against Medicare … because we knew it wouldn't work in 1965.” And, around the same time, Newt Gingrich saying the GOP plan was to make Medicare “wither on the vine.”

Today Ben Shapiro, the shouty right-wing media mogul, said the quiet part out loud:

“No one in the United States should be retiring at 65 years old. Frankly, I think retirement itself is a stupid idea unless you have some sort of health problem. […] It’s totally insane that you believe that you should be able to work from the time that you are essentially 20 to the time that you are 65 -- which is a 45 year period -- pay in, and then you’ll receive Social Security benefits sufficient to support you and your family, you and your wife or whatever, for, like, another 20 years.”³

Republicans don’t hate Social Security and Medicare merely because they are wildly successful government programs that undermine their anti-government rhetoric. Republicans hate Social Security and Medicare because they don’t think you deserve a moment of rest until your final one. They want to squeeze every last drop of productivity out of you, monetizing your existence until the day you die. Nothing depresses wages like an artificially large work force!

If they could figure out a way to keep wages down by employing the dead, they’d do that, too.⁴

1. The man’s brain is made out of Play-Doh but when he announces his disastrous and unpopular intentions multiple times it’s a good idea to pay attention.

2. Bragging about having voted against the creation of Medicare turned out to be an unsuccessful campaign strategy. Who knew?

3. The New York Times once described Shapiro as “the cool kid’s philosopher” and a “destroyer of weak arguments,” which says more about the Times itself than I ever could — and I’ve said a lot.

4. Here’s video of the Hold Steady song from which the headline above is drawn. It doesn’t really have anything to do with anything; just a little treat for reading to the end.