With one-fifth of the population receiving benefits, Social Security constitutes the biggest part of the federal budget. Therefore, it’s important to know where every presidential candidate stands on the entitlement program. But even the AARP, which is probably watching the candidates’ positions on Social Security closer than any other organization, can’t make sense of Donald Trump’s position.
A graphic on the AARP website lists Social Security proposals from seven of the eight remaining candidates on the Republican and Democratic side. The eighth candidate, who’s not included? Trump. All the graphic says is “Donald Trump has yet to take a stand.” Apparently Trump’s gibberish on the issue is not enough to constitute a real plan on the issue. That’s why Trump’s Social Security page on the AARP website says “Tell Donald Trump to take a stand on social security — now.”
The AARP isn’t endorsing particular plans or candidates, but it wants to publish information on the candidates’ positions. At the very least, it wants candidates to take positions with more substance than Trump’s nonsense.
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On the campaign trail, Trump occasionally says things like, “We’re going to save Social Security,” without giving details about how he would accomplish that. All we know is that Trump is not going to cut benefits or limit the size of the program whatsoever: “We are not going to cut Social Security,” Trump says.
Trump also promises to get rid of the “tremendous waste, fraud and abuse” in the program. He mentioned in the Feb. 13 GOP debate that “thousands and thousands” of people over 106 years old have Social Security numbers. But he didn’t mention that those people aren’t receiving benefits.
Trump only gave those details when pushed by a moderator. Prior to that, his answer on Social Security was complete babble: “If you listen to the Democrats, they want to do many things to Social Security and I want to do them on its own merit. You listen to them, what they want to do to Social Security, none of these folks are getting elected, OK, whether they can do it or not. I’m going to save Social Security. I’m going to bring jobs back from China.”
Social Security won’t run out of money until 2034, if today’s projections are right. But the program needs immediate reforms to limit the pain of drastic changes later on. It’s important for President Obama’s successor to have a plan in place to reform the system. Most of the candidates have reform plans, ranging from expanding taxes that fund the program to gradually raising the retirement age. What would Trump do? We have no idea.
Social Security Beneficiaries FindTheData
Trump is currently first in the Washington Examiner‘s presidential power rankings.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
