this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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United States | News & Politics
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It doesn’t have to end as a formal killed program.
It just has to continue unchanged, as an UNFUNDED mandate.
The elected officials who have to choose between tapping into the general fund and telling 70M people they don't get a full SS disbursement is going to be in a tight spot. Especially when we're just shitting money over the wall to a dozen ongoing military disasters.
I remember when Kentucky got enough blue dogs in office to put the Medicaid expansion into effect. They called their program "Kynect" and did a reasonably decent job of administering it. The program became so popular that Republicans pivoted to "defend Kynect from the federal government!" mode. Its been delivering services for over a decade and is a vast improvement over the deplorable state healthcare system.
Plans to defund or kill Kynect have largely failed and GOP efforts to cut the program have backfired on politicians that tried it, but Democrats struggle to take credit because the savvier Republicans aren't shy about voicing their support.
So they may be good at saying "No" to proposed legislation, but the GOP is awful at saying "No" to any broad based existing program. Its the same reason they've had such a hard time privatizing education even in blood red states.
Bush Jr ran on privatizing SS and got absolutely washed in 2006.
Obama ran on scaling back entitlements and got washed in 2010.
Trump beat Hillary in part by cleaving to SS/Medicare and attacking her on her plans to gut it.
Biden is almost a fluke in so far as he's got an anti-SS/Medi history but finally landed a successful Presidential bid. Even then, without a House willing to do deals, he can't really touch entitlements either.
The AARP rivals only AIPAC in terms of its influence. Its a classic "do not fuck with the money" situation that also shields the Pentagon and the Financial Sector.
Not to say entitlements are bulletproof, but its been a nut both parties have been trying to crack since at least Clinton without success. Reagan was only able to land a blow by "saving" it with higher taxes and some very lukewarm meddling with retirement ages. Even then, it wasn't a trick any other President managed to pull again.
Every President promises to reform SS/Medi and none of them do more than tinkering with the margins.