Fight brews for Trump, DeSantis, Pence

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s White House bid could highlight a clash over Social Security and Medicare that a few of his Republican competitors, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have been keeping at arm’s length.

Pence, who kicked off his campaign Wednesday, has set himself apart from many of the GOP primary field by talking about entitlement reform, often called the third rail of American politics.

“The most important drivers of runaway spending are our Latest Deal and Great Society programs upon which Americans depend day by day, Social Security and Medicare,” Pence said in his presidential announcement speech.

If left unaddressed, the programs’ burdens will “crush the long run” for the subsequent generation, he argued.

His stance puts him directly at odds with former President Donald Trump, who has roundly rejected any cuts to the 2 programs and has whaled on DeSantis over his past support for restructuring proposals. Trump and President Joe Biden have each attacked DeSantis from the identical angle.

DeSantis has since reversed himself, assuring in recent months that Republicans are “not going to mess with Social Security.” And his presidential campaign has spent little time dwelling on the problem — perhaps unsurprising, provided that a pro-Trump pollster reportedly found DeSantis’ record on entitlement cuts is his most vulnerable position with swing state voters.

Biden’s “policy is insolvency,” Pence said, but “you should know, my fellow Republicans, that Donald Trump’s position on entitlement reform is identical. Each of them refuse to even talk concerning the issue and take it to the American people.”

Trump himself had once called for raising the Social Security retirement age to 70 — but he abandoned that view by the point he was a presidential candidate in 2015.

“We’re going to save lots of it without increases,” Trump said on the time. “We’re not going to boost the age and it should be just wonderful.”

If Trump was making a political calculation, it wasn’t a difficult one.

Tens of hundreds of thousands of U.S. seniors rely on Social Security and Medicare advantages, and that number is growing because the population ages. In turn, the share of registered voters over 50 has surged in recent a long time. Older voters are inclined to end up at higher rates than younger groups, and additionally they tend to skew more heavily Republican.

Strong majorities of U.S. adults across the political spectrum consistently say they oppose cutting Medicare and Social Security advantages. In addition they oppose a few of the ideas recommend to reform the programs, reminiscent of raising the age of eligibility, reducing the scale of Social Security payments or raising Medicare premiums.

But each programs are set to run dry in the approaching years, because the growing pool of benefits-eligible seniors eclipses the shrinking workforce funding them through their payroll taxes.

The Social Security administration’s excess reserves as a complete are currently on the right track to be depleted starting in 2034, while Medicare’s Hospital Insurance trust fund is projected to be unable to pay full advantages by 2031.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who launched her campaign in February, has called for changes — including raising the retirement age and limiting advantages for wealthier beneficiaries — that will affect younger generations. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, meanwhile, vowed to “reduce the prices and make certain we never, ever cut Medicare or Social Security advantages” if elected president.

But many others, including party leaders, have bristled at accusations that the GOP desires to gut Social Security and Medicare.

Republicans loudly booed when Biden, in his most up-to-date State of the Union address, accused a few of them of looking for to sunset the 2 programs. It was an apparent reference to a plan put out last 12 months by Sen. Rick Scott, then the chair of Republicans’ Senate campaign committee, that included the road, “All federal laws sunsets in five years. If a law is value keeping, Congress can pass it again.”

But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had disavowed Scott’s plan, saying that a proposal to sunset the programs “is not going to be a part of the Republican Senate majority agenda.”

And House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., had drawn a red line across the programs as a part of a recent political fight over the debt ceiling.

Critics, including the White House, have said that vague Republican proposals to “strengthen” entitlements would actually result in damaging cuts. Biden press aide Andrew Bates in a memo Wednesday accused Republicans of taking “direct aim” on the programs, pointing to McCarthy’s recent calls for a congressional commission to search for cuts across the federal government — including mandatory spending programs reminiscent of Medicare and Social Security.

Meanwhile, Trump, still a driving force within the GOP, warned Republican lawmakers to not “cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security” as a part of the debt ceiling fight.

The mainstream Republican view on entitlements was over again clear. A 2011 budget proposal championed by then-House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., made reforming Medicare a top priority. That plan would move toward privatizing this system by giving seniors subsidies to buy for personal coverage.

The next 12 months, Ryan was picked as Mitt Romney’s running mate for his 2012 presidential bid against then-President Barack Obama. In 2015, Ryan was elected speaker of the House.

Once in Congress, DeSantis voted for nonbinding conservative budget proposals to reform entitlements.

But within the lead-up to his White House bid, DeSantis has taken a unique tack.

“I actually have more seniors [in Florida] than simply about anyone as a percentage. , we’re not going to mess with Social Security as Republicans,” DeSantis said on Fox News in March, responding to Biden’s claims that Republicans supported cuts.

“I feel that that is pretty clear,” DeSantis added, before moving the discussion away from entitlements and arguing that discretionary spending — money that Congress must vote to appropriate annually — was driving inflation.

As a presidential candidate, DeSantis has vowed to rein in profligate government spending. But his campaign website makes no mention of Social Security and Medicare — which accounted for nearly 8% of GDP in 2022 — and he hasn’t brought the problem up unprompted.

DeSantis announced his campaign in a lengthy, free-form conversation with Twitter chief Elon Musk that addressed a broad range of social issues and other policy topics, but didn’t touch on entitlements.

In a subsequent Fox interview, DeSantis avoided a direct discussion of Medicare and Social Security, even when asked twice for his views on how he would address those programs.

Asked on Fox if deficit spending might be solved without addressing entitlements, DeSantis said, “After all, the overspending is driving inflation,” before turning to the Federal Reserve.

Pressed to reply whether he believed the budget might be balanced without touching mandatory spending, DeSantis said, “Well, it’s true. , the mathematics I mean, at the tip of the day, we’re spending so rather more. And it’s a mix of each” discretionary and mandatory spending.

The DeSantis campaign pointed CNBC to a few other recent interviews where the subject had come up. Asked concerning the country’s funds in an interview with libertarian John Stossel, DeSantis emphasized the rise in discretionary spending over mandatory spending.

In an interview with Newsmax, DeSantis had been asked to answer criticism from Trump’s allies DeSantis’ record on entitlement reform.

“Those are Democrat attacks,” DeSantis said. “I do not think anyone really buys that.”