It’s hard to find many things that 80% of Americans agree on, but they exist. In various polls taken earlier this year, 4 out of 5 Americans said Joe Biden was too old to run for a second term, the government is doing a bad job dealing with migrants at the Mexican border and the cost of prescription drugs is unreasonable.
Oh, and here’s one more area where 80% of Americans concur: Social Security benefits shouldn’t be cut.
On those other issues, politicians are pretty responsive. Biden didn’t run for a second term in the end, after all, and both Democratic and Republican lawmakers will at least pay lip service to the idea that something should be done about the border and prescription drug prices.
Despite its unpopularity, Republicans somehow keep coming back to the idea of cutting Social Security.
But despite its unpopularity, Republicans somehow keep coming back to the idea of cutting Social Security.
In an interview with Fox Business on Tuesday, Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., suggested it was time to make “some hard decisions” to trim the federal budget. “We’ve gotta bring the Democrats in and talk about Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare,” said McCormick, who represents the wealthiest congressional district in Georgia. “There’s hundreds of billions of dollars to be saved and we know how to do it. We just have to have the stomach to actually take those challenges on.”
In the other chamber, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah posted a long thread on the social media platform X about the constitutionality and practicality of Social Security, invoking the classic conservative trope of comparing it to a “Ponzi scheme that’s running out of new investors.”
14. And let’s talk about how this system is set up to fail. The demographic shift? More retirees, fewer workers. It’s almost fair to compare it to a Ponzi scheme that’s running out of new investors.
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) December 3, 2024
“We need real, genuine reform,” he wrote. “Within the Social Security system, Americans should be able to invest in their own future, and not be shackled by the worst parts of this outdated, mismanaged system.”
Lee’s thread was then amplified by X owner Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, who has been tasked with running a “government efficiency” commission for President-elect Donald Trump and has repeatedly hinted that effort might include changes to entitlement programs.
In a speech at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally during the campaign, Musk said he wanted to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, which would amount to about 30% of spending. Since Social Security is the largest single program in the budget, that would seem to indicate it might be a target, especially since Musk also said that “everyone’s going to have to take a haircut” under his plans.
Over the years, Trump has staked out every possible position on Social Security.
So, would Trump try to cut Social Security? It’s hard to say. Over the years, he has staked out every possible position on Social Security — sometimes within hours of each other.
In a 2000 book, he too used the line about Social Security being “a huge Ponzi scheme,” called for raising the retirement age to 70 and proposed privatizing the program. He repeated the latter view in a 2004 appearance on MSNBC, where he called Social Security’s solvency “a huge problem right now.”
But when Trump ran in the Republican presidential primary in 2016, he cast himself as the program’s protector, saying “I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican.” As president, he continued to insist that he would not touch Social Security benefits even as he took actions that indicated he might. Once he claimed on Twitter that his fiscal 2021 budget would not do that just hours before it was released, showing that it did, in fact, include proposed cuts to Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income benefits. Or when he told CNBC that maybe he’d cut entitlement programs and then tried to walk it back the next day. So if Republicans — or Musk — decide to propose changes to Social Security benefits, it’s possible that he might go along with it. The question is what happens next. If history is any guide, any effort would run right into a brick wall of opposition. President George W. Bush after all, proposed privatizing Social Security after he won a second term in 2004. In a press conference shortly after that victory, Bush declared that he had earned “political capital” in the election and intended to spend it. He made it the centerpiece of his State of the Union address and barnstormed the country. And the more he talked, the less popular the idea became. Within a few months, the plan died quietly in Congress. In the 2006 midterms, Democrats flipped both houses of Congress without a single incumbent losing. Trump wouldn’t even start with Bush’s level of single-minded focus on the issue, either, as he’ll be too busy promoting his other plans to deport millions who are in the country illegally, restructure the federal government by fiat and levy tariffs right and left. With narrow majorities in the House and Senate, just a handful of Republicans could tank any proposal, and Social Security has one of the strongest lobbying and grassroots advocacy efforts in Washington. But while Trump may not end up cutting Social Security directly, his other plans may lead to cuts in the end. The nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimated earlier this year that undocumented immigrants paid $25 billion in Social Security taxes, so mass deportations may cut revenue. Another report from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found that deportations, tariffs and even Trump’s proposal to end income taxes on Social Security benefits would all worsen the program’s finances, potentially leading to a shortfall by 2031. Trump will be out of office by then. But Republicans will likely still be calling for cuts — and they may get them.
Ryan Teague Beckwith is a newsletter editor for MS NOW. He has previously worked for such outlets as Time magazine and Bloomberg News. He teaches journalism at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies and is the creator of Your First Byline. 
