Entitlements on the table

23 January 2020, 12:50 PM

Gotta pay for those tax breaks and increasing deficit, ya know?

quote:
President Trump on Wednesday indicated he may be considering reforming programs like social security and Medicare, signaling a possible break from his campaign pledge not to curtail entitlement spending.

Speaking with CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump was asked whether he would cut entitlements at some point.

“Will entitlements ever be on your plate?” asked interviewer Joe Kernen.

“At some point they will be,” Trump responded. “At the right time, we will take a look at that. You know, that’s the easiest of all things [to cut].” Trump went on to suggest that strong economic growth under his administration would make entitlement cuts more palatable to the American public.

In his 2016 presidential campaign Trump promised not to cut government entitlements. “Save Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security without cuts,” read a Trump campaign announcement in that year.

“Huckabee is a nice guy but will never be able to bring in the funds so as not to cut Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid. I will,” Trump wrote in a 2015 tweet before he entered the presidential race.

https://www.nationalreview.com...take-a-look-at-that/

Taking bets as to when the WH clarifies the remarks.

Otherwise, he just handed the Dems some mighty fine things to talk about.

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We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb

Bazootiehead-in-training

23 January 2020, 02:14 PM

Steve Miller

We all knew this was coming.

23 January 2020, 05:15 PM

Daniel

Not happening, IMO.

And, Trump talking out of both sides of his mouth? Yawn.

24 January 2020, 08:17 AM

Axtremus

Some entitlement programs as they exist today cannot be sustained indefinitely, and indeed we need to adjust those entitlements, and the best time to do that really is when the economy is strong. I don’t think any of that should be controversial at all.

Not pairing entitlement reforms with tax increases, and making the deficit worse by irresponsible tax cuts, those are the bad policy ideas that need to be opposed.