Republicans Are Killing Social Security One Tiny Service Cut at a Time

Nancy Altman reminds us that Social Security is NOT off the table for Republicans via this post Republicans Are Killing Social Security One Tiny Service Cut at a Time at Slate:

Republicans have made no secret of their long-standing desire to destroy Social Security as we know it. Indeed, Sen. Marco Rubio revealed just before Christmas that congressional Republicans plan to go after Social Security yet again.

Their strategy includes both direct and stealthier efforts—death by a thousand cuts to services. And Republicans are poised to plunge the knife in again soon.

Republican politicians are making it increasingly difficult, time-consuming, and aggravating to access our earned Social Security benefits, in the hope of undermining support for the extremely popular program, and eventually ending it as we know it.

Since 2010, when Republicans took back control of the House of Representatives, SSA’s operating budget has been cut by 11 percent. For 2018, the Republican-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee has proposed limiting Social Security’s administrative budget even more, this time, by another $492 million—4 percent of SSA’s operating budget, on top of an already enacted 16 percent cut, after inflation, since 2010.

Republicans like to say that government should be run like a business. Any private business as successful and popular as Social Security would be opening branches, not closing them. If congressional Republicans simply allow SSA to spend just another one- or two-tenths of a percent of Social Security’s large and growing surplus, the agency can provide the exemplary, first-class service for which it has always been known.