Promise broken: cutting Medicare and Social Security

[Winehole23]

the BBB is also dropping the bomb on maternal health and home health care


https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:an7da7vlgyqsgunb7ynalod3/bafkreifrjcwp7g73jknce2yrd7zkman2pqinotnulfkz7n43r qw6vryw6i

[Winehole23]

cutting SSA benefits for disabled adults who live with their parents or elderly people who live with their children

this isn't thriftiness, it's sadism

all the Trump regime knows how to do is fuck things up and hurt people


President Donald Trump’s administration is poised to penalize people like Burton simply for living in the same home as their families, according to four federal officials, internal emails and a federal regulatory listing (https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=202504&RIN=0960-AI94). The administration is working on a rule change that would deduct the value of a disabled adult’s bedroom from their SSI allotment, even if the family members they live with are poor enough to qualify for food stamps. This would mean slashing the benefits of some of the most low-income SSI recipients by up to a third — about $330 a month in Burton’s case — or ending their support altogether.


The effort to cut SSI for families who also rely on food stamps, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, was initiated by top White House and Department of Government Efficiency officials last year, multiple Social Security officials said. It marks a second attempt by the Trump administration to quietly but dramatically downsize disability benefit programs overseen by the Social Security Administration, despite those programs’ strict eligibility standards and minimal instances of fraud.


The likely SSI cut will affect not just younger adults with disabilities such as Down syndrome and severe autism who are still living at home with their low-income parents, but also older people with health or financial problems who have had to move in with their adult children on tight budgets. All told, as many as 400,000 poor and disabled people and indigent older people across the United States could have their support cut or eliminated, according to a ProPublica analysis of actuarial figures from the Social Security Administration (https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/04/19/2024-08364/expand-the-definition-of-a-public-assistance-household).
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-social-security-ssi-disability-benefits-cuts-parents-children

[Winehole23]

It won’t matter if the SNAP program has already determined a family is poor enough to receive aid; anyone living at home beyond age 18 without paying full rent will be treated as if they have a benefactor. The value of their bedroom as well as any income and assets their family may have will be calculated and recalculated as often as every month and deducted from their SSI check.

[Winehole23]

$400 billion for Trump's bribery ballroom, though

(only $200 billion last year, what happened?)

[Winehole23]

off-setting tax cuts for rich folks on the backs of the neediest people imaginable


The effort to cut SSI for families who also rely on food stamps, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, was initiated by top White House and Department of Government Efficiency officials last year, multiple Social Security officials said. It marks a second attempt by the Trump administration to quietly but dramatically downsize disability benefit programs overseen by the Social Security Administration, despite those programs’ strict eligibility standards and minimal instances of fraud.

[Winehole23]

Trump makes prescription drugs more expensive


The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced (https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/trump-administration-plans-end-medicare-drug-plan-subsidy-wsj-reports-2026-07-28/) Tuesday that it will end a subsidy program to stabilize premiums of Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, in which nearly 25 million people are enrolled (https://www.kff.org/medicare/medicare-part-d-enrollment-premiums-and-cost-sharing-in-2026/).


Medicare Part D was established through the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003. Unlike traditional Medicare, which does not cover most outpatient prescription drugs, Medicare Part D offers stand-alone prescription drug plans through private insurers.

Roughly 9 in 10 seniors take prescription drugs (https://www.aarp.org/health/drugs-supplements/more-older-adults-need-prescriptions/), and many of them take multiple prescription drugs. Given that Americans pay markedly higher prices for prescriptions (https://www.propublica.org/article/why-americans-pay-more-for-prescription-drugs)than do people in high-income peer countries, promoting affordable prescription drugs is essential. Nearly a quarter of seniors (https://www.aarp.org/health/drugs-supplements/more-older-adults-need-prescriptions/) report difficulty affording their prescriptions, and 7% (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2824778) of seniors ration or do not fill prescriptions due to their cost. Starting last year, the Inflation Reduction Act capped Medicare enrollees’ out-of-pocket drug spending. The subsidies, which the Biden administration set up to offset increases in premiums, were supposed to run through at least 2027, but CMS is now moving to end them early.
https://www.ms.now/opinion/trump-medicare-part-d-prescription-drugs

[Winehole23]

cut SNAP, hurt grocers


Hundreds of longtime customers of Fresh Market Place have been kicked off SNAP after President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy law, known as the “Big Beautiful Bill,” added newer, stricter work requirements for the program’s recipients in February.


In Illinois, the implications threaten not only individual households but also the viability of the Chicago area’s independent authorized SNAP retailers.


At Fresh Market Place, 25% of the customer base relies on SNAP.


“The big guys are a little different, but we literally run on penny margins sometimes. And when that much of your clientele is relying on a government resource to come in and shop … we feel it deeply,” Drossos said.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/08/05/chicago-grocery-stores-snap-cuts/

[Winehole23]

all sticks and no carrots is no way to win elections and remain in power, tbh

[Winehole23]

btw, SNAP has an outstanding ROI: every dollar spent on SNAP generates $1.54 in economic activity.

[Winehole23]

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:3bgslebqbfl3gs22o2fwzcyg/bafkreih2amzs26q3ekep63jdsavmdb7vrk6ei2nfpix7gxqof tgygrlpw4

[Winehole23]

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:drfb2pdjlnsqkfgsoellcahm/bafkreibiu7vjdeifxtvnkk2xymkhvdyylwwylduxxb4a6fupq obqn3qryu


An extreme position does not become less extreme just because someone can put forward one that’s even more extreme. Massacring 100 children (https://www.commondreams.org/tag/children) doesn’t become a moderate position just because someone is advocating killing 200 children.


This is how we should view the line being pushed by “moderate” voices that we have to deal with the $40 trillion debt with both spending cuts and tax hikes. The reality is that, apart from the military and Homeland Security, there is little fat in spending to be cut, as even Elon Musk (https://www.commondreams.org/tag/elon-musk) inadvertently acknowledged. Insofar as we have a deficit problem, the issue is on the tax side, as can be easily (https://econjared.substack.com/p/tax-cuts-or-spending-increases-which?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3782367&post_id=212539359&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=bzjy&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email) shown (https://substack.com/home/post/p-211987657). The rich have been taking an ever-larger share of national income over the last half-century, and they don’t feel like paying taxes on their winnings.


The major media outlets, which are all controlled (https://cepr.net/publications/the-rich-control-the-media-whining-is-not-a-strategy/) by rich people, are pretending to be moderate by saying that we need to both raise taxes and cut spending. But there is nothing moderate about saying that we have to cut programs like Social Security (https://www.commondreams.org/tag/social-security), Medicare (https://www.commondreams.org/tag/medicare), and Medicaid (https://www.commondreams.org/tag/medicaid) because Republicans (https://www.commondreams.org/tag/republicans) have given big tax breaks to their campaign contributors.


Republicans pushed these tax cuts (https://www.commondreams.org/tag/tax-cuts), knowing they would increase the deficit, but did not make any corresponding cuts in spending because the cuts would be incredibly unpopular. Now they are using their control over the media to insist that these cuts are now absolutely necessary to offset all the lost tax revenue from tax cuts put in place by Reagan, Bush II, and Trump.
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/extremist-billionaire-media-owners-want-to-steal-your-social-security-so-they-don-t-have-to-pay-slightly-higher-taxes

[Winehole23]

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:drfb2pdjlnsqkfgsoellcahm/bafkreiakohnxruetdc4hph2g7nybmcux7goezddum7ysufeov iu7k2epza

[CosmicCowboy]

No offense Winehole but that chart is not accurate.

The fed funds rate was 20% in 1981 with a much smaller GDP than todays 3.75% and 30.77 trillion GDP.

[Winehole23]

it didn't remain at 20% forever, but point taken

SS solvency could probably be fixed well into the next century by removing the contribution cap

[Winehole23]

at any rate, the point remains that the runaway spending that led to our fiscal predicament wasn't social entitlements but tax cuts and wars funded off books without fiscal offsets

it wasn't appropriations that did it to us, it was ignoring the revenue side and stupid wars

[Winehole23]

on the (obviously by now) empirically disproven theory that tax cuts would stimulate the economy and increase tax collections to bridge the revenue gap created by tax cuts

[Winehole23]

are you there, CC?

:lol

[Winehole23]

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