What's this? A politician - a Republican politician! - proposes a tax increase?

Semafor's headline dazed me at first: GOP Budget Chair: New revenue should be on the table to reduce the deficit. The GOP Budget Chair? Or for that matter, any Budget chair? A politician is openly recommending a tax hike? What brave new world is this?

The following quote becalmed me, hurling me back into the cowardly world of Republican politics. The Budget Chair is Rep. Jodey Arrington of Texas, and this is what Jodey said: "It’s only fair to have both revenue and expenditures on the table. The last time there was a fix to Social Security that addressed the solvency for 75 years, it was Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill, and it was bipartisan."

Just to get this out of the way, waxing nostalgic about the Reagan-O'Neill era and citing it as a model of affable bipartisanship for today's politics is as useless as proposing that Congress work five days a week. This, Congressman, is the wacky, benighted and hate-filled Age of Gaetz, Greene & Tuberville, and nothing will change that short of electorally dynamiting you and your Republican colleagues out of your congressional seats. 

But back to the substance of Arrington's remarks. He articulated two little words that explain Republicans' less than sudden urge for revenue and program reform: Social Security. And by the way this is a Republican urge. The congressman proposed the creation of a bipartisan commission to study the nation's deficit spending and "[craft] a plan to stabilize" the debt; it was voted out of committee by 19 Republicans but only three Democrats. God even called on "Speaker" Mike Johnson to support the wretched thing.   

He does because it will address that 89-year-old bugbear of ultraconservative pols: FDR's lasting legacy, Social Security. The aforementioned have wanted to get their libertarian mitts on America's most successful social legislation since the dawning of modern progressivism, 1935. President Eisenhower told them to go soak their tiny heads — they weren't to touch it. But they're back, indeed they've been back for some time, and given today's titanic deficits, they see this as their chance.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, Democrat of Texas, also sees their ultimate objective: "There is a real concern out there that this commission will be called the 'Cut Social Security Commission.'" Added Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee: "I believe they’re well-intentioned. I honestly do. They’re very sincere. I just know the Republican Party in 2024 is not about to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, whether a commission says they should do it or not."

You're welcome to believe what you like, Mr. Kildee. My belief in their good intentions is equivalent to my belief that Trump is smart and Putin is a humanitarian. I do however honestly agree that they're sincere — in gutting Social Security.

Fact is, no commission, no studies, no spending cuts and shuffling of money are required to cure the program's long-term woes. One vote on lifting the income cap on payroll taxes would close 90% of the program's eventual shortfall, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has reported. Few would be affected; the center found that only 6% of workers "earn more than the current tax cap."

But as Rep. Kildee correctly observed: "The Republican Party in 2024 is not about to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans." They would if they were genuinely "sincere" about saving Social Security. To speak of Republicans, sincerity and good deeds in the same sentence, though, would be pure folly.

Comments

[Anne J]

When Bush the Lesser was running for reelection in 2004, did he ever mention he was going to try to privatize social security? Or did he save it for 2005 when he claimed that he won a large amount of political capital and he intended to spend it? How did that work out? Or Paul Ryan who never met a social program he liked for himself but wanted to deny the rest of us who came up with a plan that would only affect people who were under the age of 55? The public saw through that, too. What this congressman is proposing is more of the same and I hope the public sees through it again.