The Long History Of Republicans Trying To Undermine Social Security And Medicare

Paul Krugman reminds the willfully ignorant about Republican claims that they're not out to gut Social Security and Medicare:

... Two things have been true ever since 1980. First, Republicans have tried to make deep cuts to Social Security and Medicare every time they thought there might be a political window of opportunity. Second, on each occasion they’ve done exactly what they’re doing now: claiming that Democrats are engaged in smear tactics when they describe G.O.P. plans using exactly the same words Republicans themselves used.

So, about that history. It has been widely forgotten, but soon after taking office Ronald Reagan proposed major cuts to Social Security. But he backed down in the face of a political backlash, leading analysts at the Cato Institute to call for a “Leninist” strategy — their word — creating a coalition ready to exploit a future crisis if and when one arrived.

To that end, Cato created the Project on Social Security Privatization, calling for replacing Social Security with individual accounts — which George W. Bush tried to do in 2005. By then, however, Cato had quietly renamed its project; “privatization” polled badly, and Bush insisted that it was a “trick word” used to “scare people.”

So there’s a history here, and there’s a similar history for Medicare. Many people probably recall that Newt Gingrich shut down the federal government in 1995. I don’t know how many people realize that Gingrich’s key demand was that President Bill Clinton agree to large cuts in Medicare and Medicaid.

After Republicans gained control of the House in 2010, Paul Ryan began pushing for major cuts in spending. One key element was converting Medicare from a system that pays medical bills to a system offering people fixed sums of money to be applied to the purchase of private insurance — that is, vouchers.

But many though not all supporters of the Ryan plan insisted that calling vouchers “vouchers” was a left-wing smear.

So are people who claim that Biden was over the top unaware of this track record? Do they really not know that Republicans have spent more than four decades trying to find ways to undermine Medicare and Social Security? Are they unaware that there’s a long history of Republicans whining that Democrats are engaged in smear tactics when they describe Republican policies using exactly the same words Republicans used themselves until political consultants urged them to find euphemisms?

There's also the history of a collection of compulsive liars, scoundrels, crooks, hypocrites and sociopaths otherwise known as "the Republican Party" whose core philosophy is "Comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted."  That perspective shades all of their thoughts and actions, but never more evident than in their decades- long effort to gut social welfare programs.  

Republicans haven't undergone a miraculous conversion;  they're just searching for different euphemisms to disguise their plans.

BONUS:  We ask you --

 

Does this look like the face of a man who would take away your Social Security? https://t.co/fxWbHkZsCf

— Schooley (@Rschooley) February 15, 2023

 

(Photo:  Republican Senators Rick Scott (FL), Mike Lee (UT), and Bill Cassidy (LA) jeering President Biden at the State of the Union Address for telling the truth about their plans)