Call for $2.5 Trillion in Cuts Proves GOP Wants to 'Steal Our Benefits'

With a potential government shutdown just hours away, House Republican leaders displayed a slide during a closed-door GOP conference meeting on Friday showing a draft agreement proposing $2.5 trillion in net mandatory spending cuts in exchange for raising the U.S. debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion at some point next year.

The slide was seen as further confirmation that Republicans are seriously eyeing cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and federal nutrition assistance—programs that fall under the mandatory spending category.

Though by law Social Security cannot be cut in the reconciliation process that Republicans are planning to use to bypass the Senate filibuster and Democratic opposition in the upcoming Congress, other key programs including Medicare and Medicaid could be vulnerable to the GOP's massive proposed austerity spree.

"The ONLY WAY to cut $2.5 trillion in spending is by slashing Social Security, Medicare, and/or Medicaid," the progressive advocacy group Social Security Works (SSW) wrote on social media in response to the slide. "Republicans want to steal our benefits to pay for their billionaire tax cuts."

Bharat Ramamurti, former deputy director of the White House National Economic Council, wrote that the slide "is a Republican commitment to cut Medicare, Social Security, or veterans' benefits (all to make way for new tax cuts for the rich)."

"There's no way to make this math work otherwise," he added. "Their promise is to cut $2.5 trillion in mandatory spending. Nearly 60% of mandatory spending is for Medicare and Social Security. If they don't touch those, they'd have to cut Medicaid to the bone."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) warned that the draft agreement means "Republicans are plotting to cut healthcare for seniors and veterans to grease the wheels for tax cuts for giant corporations and billionaires like Elon Musk."

For weeks, Republicans have been discussing potential cuts and sweeping changes to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—including the addition of new work requirements—to help pay for a fresh round of tax cuts that would largely benefit the richest Americans and large corporations.

Republicans working with Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy—the billionaire co-chairs of the soon-to-be-created Department of Government Efficiency—have also signaled that Social Security and Medicare cuts are on the table even after President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on protecting the programs.

"Republicans have made their plan for the new year crystal clear: Ram through massive tax giveaways for the ultra-wealthy and corporations, and pay for them by shaking down programs and agencies that working families rely on," Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens wrote in a Rolling Stoneop-ed on Friday. "And they're putting unelected and unaccountable oligarchs—Musk and Ramaswamy—in charge of deciding how much pain Americans will have to tolerate so that the rich can get richer."