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Erica Werner
Congress reporter with a focus on economic policy
Democrats on Wednesday warned of the peril that Republicans are putting on health insurance and social security, accusing the GOP of plotting to cut critical social protection programs in order to fill the budget deficit they themselves have. same created.
"A vote for Republican candidates in this election is a vote to reduce Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).
Van Hollen and other Democrats rallied to the comments of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in which the Senate Republican accused social programs of being responsible for the growing deficit and hoped that Congress would Would attack spending "at some point here".
The alarm bells of the Democrats about the deficits, which reach a trillion dollars a year, arrived three weeks before the mid-term elections that will decide the control of the Congress. President Trump himself expressed his new concern over government spending on Wednesday, and told cabinet members that they should plan for a 5% reduction in their agency budget while offering little detail except for to say that the Pentagon's budget would be largely spared. Looking at the reporters, Trump promised that the cuts would have "a huge impact".
Congress is expected to approve spending cuts and legislators have rejected the president's previous budgets. But Trump's push represents a recent refocus on spending and deficit. Trump met with senior advisers on the budget in recent days and tried to formulate a budget strategy.
A report from the White House and Treasury Department's budget office revealed Monday that the deficit had risen 17% last year to reach $ 779 billion, and that it should eclipse a trillion dollars per year by the year 2020.
Elsewhere in the country, the country's budget deficit was tightened differently at the end of the mid-term campaigns, as Democrats followed one another in McConnell's remarks and reiterated their arguments that they were threatening seriously the health of voters. care and financial security.
In an interview with Bloomberg News on Tuesday, McConnell (R-Ky.) Called the nation's growing deficit and debt "very troubling" and explained that they were motivated by Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid .
"There has been a bipartisan reluctance to address rights changes because of the popularity of these programs," said McConnell. "Let's hope that at some point we'll be serious about it. We have not been there yet.
On Wednesday, McConnell told a group of reporters that he was not planning any effort to remove Medicare and other Trump-related programs, which largely put out of reach insurance. -maladie and social security. Trump himself repeated this week in an interview with Associated Press that "I do not touch social security".
But Democrats tell voters that McConnell's words herald plans for a total onslaught on retirement and health care programs that count millions of older, lower-income Americans. After Brett M. Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation proceedings and Republicans' attempts to offend what they termed the "liberal mob rule," the Democrats jumped at the opportunity to reorient the conversation.
Van Hollen, who chairs the Democratic Senate's campaign committee, organized a conference with other party leaders to focus on McConnell's comments. They sought to add urgency to the arguments the Democrats presented throughout the year in their ads and campaigns, claiming that the Republicans inflated the deficit by adopting a tax cut of 1%. $ 500 billion benefiting primarily businesses and the wealthy, and will now attempt to repair the damage eligibility programs.
"We have to make sure the public knows exactly what's going on," Van Hollen said. "Mitch McConnell explained the game in his comments, and we must now make sure the country is aware."
Republicans rejected the new Democratic attacks and said the strategy would prove ineffective.
Steven Law, former Chief of Staff McConnell at the head of the Senate's Senate Fund, a super PAC, described the Democrats' arguments as "a triple bank coup that would be lost for most voters, especially to a point where the clutter and confusion on the airwaves. "
"First of all, McConnell did not say what the Dems wanted him to say: they should really cut his remarks to have something impacting," Law said in an email. "Second, they will have to convince voters that everything McConnell has not quite said is what candidate X already believes."
Just hours after McConnell's first comments, the Democratic parties of Florida, Montana and Nevada condemned him and asked him if Republican candidates in the Senate supported him.
"Is [Senate candidate Matt] Rosendale agrees with the Senate Majority Leader, her party leader, on the fact that we should cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? Asked a Montana Democrat MP in a press release. "Rosendale certainly has no problem campaigning with McConnell and, after all, Rosendale opposes Montana's Medicaid program."
Democrat candidates, who had been saying since last year that tax cuts were a precursor to cuts to social security and Medicare, used the comments to boost that message.
"Uh oh," tweeted Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) Wednesday. "Like the sun rising in the morning. Tax cuts for the rich. . . Rs is now planning cuts in social security and Medicare to cover the growing deficit that they have caused. Not in my custody. "
McConnell's comments also run counter to the tactics used by many Republicans to raise questions about the Democrats' support for Medicare. In dozens of races, the Republican PACs had accused Democrats of plotting to "end Medicare" by extending it to a universal coverage program. In some cases, they used this attack against Democrats who do not favor the so-called Medicare-for-all.
"[Her] The plan is to take everything we have and give it, "says an actor in a Republican advertisement targeting Michigan congressional candidate Elissa Slotkin. "We contributed to this system. Why would she want to take that away?
The ads are similar to the ones the Democrats have launched and continue to be targeting Republicans who have supported rights reform. But the Democrats thought McConnell had thrown a key in his party's plans.
"Like social security, Medicare is a pillar of retirement security and must be present for retirees today and in the future," said Slotkin, who does not support the Medicare proposals for all, in a tweet Tuesday. "If elected, nobody will work harder than me to defend him."
On Wednesday, McConnell gave more food to Democrats by telling Reuters, in an interview, that Republicans might again try to repeal the Affordable Care Act if they won enough seats in Congress the month next. Democrats are tackling the issue of protecting people with pre-existing health problems, the pillar of Obamacare that Republicans pledge to protect despite their vote to overturn the law.
Reports in recent weeks have highlighted deficit growth under the Trump administration, and budget experts have said new data show that tax cuts are making matters worse, not better. The White House and the big Republicans had promised that the tax cuts would be profitable by generating more revenue because of strong economic growth, but that has not happened yet.
Republicans said the tax revenues are higher this year than last year, which means that tax cuts have already been offset by growth. But a number of budget experts have said that it was wrong. Part of the slight increase this year is due to the high amount of taxes paid in April when people filed their taxes on their 2017 income, and that the income levels are also lower than those projected before the place tax cuts. .
Moody's Investors Services, a firm that monitors the solvency of the US government, said in a report expecting a worsening of the US deficit in the coming years, in part because Congress and the House of Commons Blanche had no concrete plan. to find out how to fix it. The deficit could reach levels never seen since the recession of 2008 and 2009, a rare dynamic in times of economic growth.
The GOP's tax bill and the projected increase it would bring to the federal deficit emerged during Tuesday's debate in the Senate, Texas, Texas, a decisive battleground in the struggle for the majority.
Senator Ted Cruz vehemently rejected the claim that Republicans were hypocrites by passing a bill aimed at reducing the deficit after years of warning about the dangers of excessive debt.
"If we have a deficit and a debt, it is not because we have reduced taxes and boosted the economy. The reason we have a deficit and a debt is due to the fact that the Congress keeps spending, "he said, defending a bill that, he added, will boost economic growth.
His opponent, Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D) retorted, saying that Cruz had voted in favor of a $ 2 trillion increase in the country's national debt for a tax bill benefiting wealthy corporations "who are already sitting on record piles of cash ".
Sean Sullivan and Seung Min Kim contributed to this story.
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