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Trump has promised to protect Social Security. His proposals could lead to benefit cuts in 6 years
CNN
Former President Donald Trump has long vowed to protect Social Security. But the bevy of tax breaks he’s promised – including pledging to stop taxing Social Security benefits – could hasten the depletion of the beloved entitlement program’s trust funds and leave seniors with smaller monthly payments.
Former President Donald Trump has long vowed to protect Social Security. But the bevy of tax breaks he’s promised – including pledging to stop taxing Social Security benefits – could hasten the depletion of the beloved entitlement program’s trust funds and leave seniors with smaller monthly payments. Trump’s platform would drain critical tax revenue from Social Security’s trust funds, leading them to run out of money by 2031 – three years earlier than currently projected, according to a new analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan government watchdog. That would force a roughly 30% cut in benefits unless Congress acts. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a plan that would have this big of a negative effect on solvency in a general election campaign,” Marc Goldwein, the committee’s senior policy director, told CNN. Social Security’s finances have long been on shaky financial ground. As the nation ages, the ranks of beneficiaries have surged while the number of workers contributing to the system has shrunk. The program’s combined retirement and disability trust funds are currently scheduled to run dry in 2034, leading to a 23% cut in benefits the following year, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis, which the committee used for its report. (Social Security’s trustees estimate the combined trust funds would be depleted in 2035.) If Trump’s proposals were enacted, monthly payments would be 33% smaller in 2035, according to the committee, which did not do a detailed analysis of the impact of Vice President Kamala Harris’ platform on Social Security because it said the changes would be minimal. The Trump campaign lashed out at the committee’s report, saying that the watchdog has been “consistently wrong throughout the years.”
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Over the past 10 days, Vice President JD Vance put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on notice, rattled the confidence of century-old allies in Western Europe during his first foreign trip, decamped to Capitol Hill to help in delicate budget talks and delivered a spirited defense of the Trump administration’s first month to a gathering of conservatives outside the nation’s capital.