Will Democrats Try Cutting Social Security and Medicare After a Disastrous Midterms?
If Democrats lose the midterm elections, as it seems like they might, there’s a very good chance they’ll follow up by trying to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. It’s the same thing Barack Obama did twelve years ago.
President Joe Biden speaks at an event celebrating Pride month in the East Room of the White House on June 15, 2022, in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong / Getty Images)
If you want to understand one of the many real dangers of Republicans winning the midterms, then just go back a dozen years to see what happened to the politics of Social Security when the Democratic White House last lost Congress to the Republicans.
Then remember that the Democratic president this time around isn’t some newbie just starting to toy with the idea of cutting benefits. The Oval Office occupant is a career politician who has spent much of his adult life pushing Social Security and Medicare cuts using the same “entitlement reform” language that Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) began floating this week during a televised debate with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
Emboldened by Graham’s comments, Democrats are now using their megaphone to try to scandalize his statements, in which he first blamed the federal debt on social safety net programs, and then declared that “entitlement reform is a must.”
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