Donald Trump’s first budget request does not propose fixing the two major entitlement programs, Social Security retirement and Medicare. But as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget testified Wednesday, the White House’s proposal could be the last balanced budget request to not address these growing entitlement programs.
“I will tell you it’s probably the last time we can do that,” said Mick Mulvaney while testifying before the House Budget committee. “It’ll be very difficult in the future to do that because of the role that those programs play in our future spending.”
It’s why Mulvaney tried convincing Trump, unsuccessfully, to consider bucking his campaign promise not to touch Social Security or Medicare—and it’s why, according to Republican sources on both Capitol Hill and the White House, Mulvaney will continue to press the president to change his mind.
Mulvaney will have some help in that effort from his former House colleagues. The chairman of the Budget committee, Diane Black, seemed to be trying to make the argument to the president as well in her questions to Mulvaney.
House Republicans will, for the moment, continue to publicly stand behind the Medicare reforms they’ve voted on for six years. Black told Bloomberg Wednesday morning that the House Republican budget framework will likely come out next month and will include a plan for “some changes in Medicare.” I’m told the reform will be very similar to the premium support proposal found in past budget proposals from Tom Price and Paul Ryan.
For the time being, the White House and President Trump won’t do anything to stop congressional Republicans from expressing this. The House committee’s framework, like the president’s own budget, is more a statement of principles than the actual outline of the federal government’s receipts and outlays for the next year. There’s little reason to think the House GOP conference (led by the first and most important proponent of premium support, Paul Ryan), will back away from a Medicare reform budget like those its supported in the past several years. Social Security reform, on the other hand, remains a nonstarter at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
For now, the divide between the White House and the House on Medicare reform is simmering on the back burner. Both sides are preoccupied with coming together on tax reform legislation, which the White House still believes can be completed by the end of the year, and a continuing budget resolution to set discretionary spending caps and fund the government. House members are only beginning to discuss the idea of including language to reform Medicare in a budget reconciliation bill, which is how it would have to pass Congress and get to the president’s desk.
And then getting President Trump to sign it? Well, Mulvaney has a lot of convincing to do.
