Some congressional Republicans think they’ve found the ultimate legacy project for President Donald Trump – fixing Social Security before it goes broke.
The catch is that doing so may require the president to embrace a tax increase, something he has spent his political career campaigning against, and Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), the influential chair of the House Appropriations Committee, has been making the pitch directly to Trump, according to The Washington Post.
Because the president cannot run for re-election, Cole argues, he could tackle the politically toxic program “with no political risk” and reap outsized credit for it. “I think he’ll get enormous political credit for it,” Cole said, calling a comprehensive fix a potential “crowning achievement” of Trump’s second term.
The trust fund is projected to run dry in 2032, at which point monthly checks would shrink by an average of $440 unless Congress intervenes, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. Closing the gap would require $459 billion in cuts or new revenue in 2033 alone — a sum that grows every year after.
That math has pushed a small but notable group of Republicans, including Cole, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) and Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-PA), toward an idea long treated as forbidden in GOP circles: raising the payroll tax cap so higher earners pay more into the system. Moreno has even co-sponsored a bill with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to eliminate the cap, arguing it’s unfair that a “middle-class nurse” pays a larger share of her paycheck than a wealthy corporate lawyer.
Trump, so far, has offered no sign he’s open to the trade, and has even gone so far as to warn Republicans not to cut “a single penny” from Social Security. He has never said how he would cover the shortfall without either raising taxes or cutting benefits, the same two levers behind every major Social Security rescue since Reagan struck a deal with Democrats in 1983.
Asked how Trump would finance his no-cuts promise, White House spokesperson Liz Huston sidestepped the question, saying only that “there will be zero reductions to Social Security payments” under Trump.
That silence is likely to frustrate Republicans seeking presidential cover for a plan that breaks with decades of anti-tax orthodoxy.
Grover Norquist, the activist who has policed GOP tax discipline for a generation, is already warning members off the idea, arguing tax hikes cost Republicans elections without buying them any spending cuts in return.
“When Republicans say no to tax increases, they win. When they say yes to tax increases, they lose,” Norquist said. “They don’t get spending cuts — at all – and they get smeared in the next election.”
The post GOP chair dangles ‘crowning achievement’ for Trump that carries steep price for party appeared first on Raw Story.
