Once again showing their aptitude for comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted, House Republicans are planning to reduce or limit earned benefits for seniors in their upcoming 2024 budget plan. Their agenda will be to make the Malignant Loser's tax giveaway to the ultra wealthy and major corporations permanent, while at the same time hammering senior benefits due from Social Security and Medicare. From Roll Call:
"The largest bloc of House conservatives offered up a fiscal blueprint Wednesday that promises to balance the federal budget in seven years, make GOP tax cuts permanent, and slash domestic spending.
The plan offered by the 175-member Republican Study Committee would gradually raise the age at which future retirees can start claiming full Social Security benefits from 67 to 69, a politically fraught proposal that's all but certain to appear in Democratic campaign ads. [snip]
While defense spending would be allowed to grow modestly, nondefense spending would gradually shrink over the decade, though both categories of spending would decline as a share of the economy.
Base budget authority for defense would grow from $886 billion fiscal 2024, a 3 percent increase over the current fiscal year, to $969 billion in fiscal 2033. But nondefense budget authority would be slashed by about 30 percent next year to $522 billion, inching up very slightly to $553 billion in fiscal 2033.
The plan also promises to shore up the solvency of Social Security and Medicare, though the budget document is light on details. (our emphasis)
The Republican budget document is "light on details" because they know the details would be so unpopular that they'd lose the House in 2024 if they had to run on them honestly. The same is true for the Malignant Loser's tax giveaway being made permanent, which blew a giant, multi-trillion dollar hole in the deficit.
President Biden and the Dems should be out on the hustings talking loudly about this Republican agenda, before the Republican House starts shutting down Government agencies in the fall over this reactionary plan.
