A recent report from NBC News highlights that Republican U.S. Senate candidates “have called for cutting long-term Social Security.” GOP nominees like Blake Masters in Arizona, and Ron Johnson in Wisconsin have pitched ideas that would fundamentally alter this widely supported, bipartisan retirement benefits program.
At an event in June, Masters argued “we should privatize Social Security. Right? Private retirement accounts, get the government out of it.” Meanwhile, earlier this month, Johnson advocated for making Social Security no longer a mandatory program — giving Republicans the power to slash benefits each fiscal year.
Even Colorado Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe O’Dea has said that “he supported limiting the size of the federal government and reducing funding for ‘some’ programs like Medicare and Social Security.”
NBC News: Democrats hammer Republicans over Social Security as conservative candidates grab the ‘third rail’
By Sahil Kapur | August 28, 2022
Key Points:
- “When Blake Masters was running for the Republican nomination for Senate in Arizona, he floated what he called a ‘fresh and innovative’ idea. ‘Maybe we should privatize Social Security. Right? Private retirement accounts, get the government out of it,’ he said at a June forum with the fiscal conservative group FreedomWorks.”
- “Democrats saw an opening in the key Arizona race. The party’s Senate campaign arm rolled out an ominous TV ad highlighting the footage, accusing Masters of seeking to ‘cut our Social Security and privatize it’ to finance tax breaks for the wealthy, while ‘gambling our life savings on the stock market.’”
- “Ahead of the 2022 election, Masters is one of many Republicans to touch what has been called the ‘third rail’ of American politics — a costly but popular pillar of the safety net that gives monthly cash benefits to those 62 and older, who vote in big numbers. In major Senate and House races across the country, GOP candidates have called for cutting long-term Social Security spending to tackle inflation and resolve the program’s finances. Democrats are trying to make them pay a political price, arguing that the same Republicans created a budget hole by cutting taxes for top earners.”
- “Democrats, who like to take credit as a party for creating Social Security, have sought to drive the contrast by proposing measures to expand benefits and lift the earnings cap on payroll taxes to infuse new funding into the program.”
Read the full report here.
Published: Aug 29, 2022 | Last Modified: Aug 30, 2022