Resetting the Social Security and Medicare Debate: An Opinion on McCarthy's Approach

• House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republicans in Congress want to restore fiscal restraint to Washington
• The difficult work of returning yearly deficits and the long-term debt to a sustainable path is complicated by the rise in interest rates and their impact on the budget
• Disproportionate media and political attention is often paid to discretionary spending in the budget
• But these policy priorities have relatively less impact on our country’s long-run fiscal position than spending on major entitlement programs, particularly Medicare and Social Security.
• To truly return fiscal restraint to federal spending and make both programs sustainable, McCarthy and the Republicans in Congress will have to get serious about reforming them.
• The politics of entitlement reform and fiscal policy more broadly have gotten noticeably more complex (and confused) within the Republican Party since former President Donald Trump’s election in 2016
• Trump was averse to touching entitlement spending and inspired a group of populist-minded Republicans to argue against reforms to Medicare and Social Security
• For their part, Democrats have largely opposed entitlement reforms over the years and effectively politicized the issue
• President Joe Biden highlighted a vow to “protect” Medicare and Social Security in a January 7 statement congratulating McCarthy on his election as Speaker
• But a few House Republicans, including several conservatives who initially opposed a McCarthy speakership, have explicitly supported a 2023 budget that directly addresses spending on Medicare, Social Security and other entitlement programs.
• McCarthy addressed the issue of entitlement reform in a Thursday press conference by noting that House Republicans would also “protect Medicare and Social Security” but were prepared to “scrutinize every single dollar spent.”
• On this issue, McCarthy faces an early conflict in his term between politics and policy.