President Trump’s budget director is preparing options for reforming entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security to present to Trump after the pending government spending battle is over, in an effort to win the president over on spending reductions that he opposed on the campaign trail.
“As soon as the 2018 spending budget is done at the end of next week. I’m hoping to put together something for the president to look at on the other pieces of entitlement spending, or mandatory spending,” Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said Monday in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.
On the campaign trail, Trump struck a populist note on retirement programs, saying that he would defend them and seeking to distinguish himself from Republicans who sought to reform them.
Mulvaney, however, has long advocated overhauling entitlement programs to reduce spending, in order to stabilize the national debt.
“I’ve already started to socialize the discussion around here in the West Wing about how important the mandatory spending is to the drivers of our debt,” Mulvaney said Monday. “I think people are starting to grab it.”
Speaking on Fox News Sunday morning, Mulvaney said the White House would address entitlement policies in its fiscal year 2018 budget, which is due in May. Unlike the agency spending proposals being unveiled this week by the still-undermanned White House, the president’s budget is usually used to propose major initiatives.
While raising the retirement age is off the table, Mulvaney suggested, other entitlement reforms are possible to square with Trump’s promises not to cut benefits for retirees.
“I think really what this president is interested in doing is not affecting the benefits for folks, and saving these programs long term,” he said Monday. “And I think there’s a way to do that.”
