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    Young Americans Can’t Keep Funding Boomers and Beyond

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    You know the expression “OK, Boomer”? Better said as “Boomer OK.” That’s because the social safety net in the United States is increasingly favoring the old over the young. And this affects our political views and the security of future generations.Younger Americans have valid reason for disgruntlement: Big shifts in income and wealth are dramatically favoring their elders. Under almost every president since 1980, 80 percent of the real growth in domestic spending has gone to Social Security and health care, with Medicare the most expensive health program, according to calculations based on federal data. As a share of GDP, all other domestic outlays combined have declined.Our current tax system also largely does not help Americans, most of whom are younger, pay for their higher education. That wasn’t as big a deal in the 1960s or 1970s, when the average college graduate most likely had little or no student debt. Today, the average taken out each year is about seven times that in 1971, in part because state governments have stripped colleges and universities of funding. This is happening at a time when owning a house is increasingly out of reach. The median price has risen from about 3.5 times median annual income in 1984 to 5.8 times in 2022.So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that today, younger generations are more likely to fall into lower-income classes than their parents or grandparents. Nearly a half century ago, it was the reverse. And in 1989, the median net worth of Americans aged 35 to 44 was nearly 75 percent of those aged 65 to 74. By 2022, that ratio had fallen to one-third.The why is simple. Unlike most other spending, Congress effectively designed Medicare in 1965 and Social Security in the 1970s in such a way that outlays would increase forever faster than our national income. That’s partly because Medicare costs keep rising along with medical prices and new treatments and because Social Security benefits are designed to increase for each new generation along with inflation and wages. And we’re living longer, which means more years of benefits.Today, tax revenues are so committed to mandatory spending, largely for older Americans, and to interest on the national debt (which has quadrupled as a share of G.D.P. since 1980) that few revenues are left for everything else. So, unless we borrow to pay for it, there’s little for education, infrastructure, environment, affordable housing, reducing poverty, or the military.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Dangles New Tax Cut Proposals With Real Political Appeal

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      The most recent and costliest of Mr. Trump’s ideas would end income taxes on Social Security benefits.First it was a tax cut for hotel and restaurant workers in Nevada, a swing state where Donald J. Trump proposed exempting tips from taxes. Then, in front of powerful chief executives gathered in Washington, Mr. Trump floated cutting the corporate tax rate, helping to ease concerns in the business community about his candidacy.Now Mr. Trump is calling for an end to taxing Social Security benefits, which could be a boon for retirees, one of the most politically important groups in the United States.Repeatedly during the campaign, Mr. Trump and Republicans have embraced new, sometimes novel tax cuts in an attempt to shore up support with major constituencies. In a series of social-media posts, at political rallies, and without formal policy proposals, Mr. Trump has casually suggested reducing federal revenue by trillions of dollars.While policy experts have taken issue with the ideas, Mr. Trump’s pronouncements have real political appeal, at times putting Democrats on their back foot. Nevada’s two Democratic senators and its powerful culinary union have endorsed ending taxes on tips, while the AARP supports tax relief for seniors receiving Social Security benefits.“You do have to scratch your head a little bit when someone’s going around offering free lunches everywhere,” said Jesse Lee, a Democratic consultant and former Biden White House official. “We’re all for people having their lunch, but we have to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for it.”The most recent and most expensive of Mr. Trump’s plans is ending income taxes on Social Security benefits, which could cost the federal government as much as $1.8 trillion in revenue over a decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. That would burn through the program’s financial reserves more quickly and hasten the moment when the government is no longer able to pay out Social Security benefits in full under current law.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Once a G.O.P. Rallying Cry, Debt and Deficits Fall From the Party’s Platform

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      Fiscal hawks are lamenting the transformation of the party that claimed to prize fiscal restraint and are warning of dire economic consequences.When Donald J. Trump ran for president in 2016, the official Republican platform called for imposing “firm caps on future debt” to “accelerate the repayment of the trillions we now owe.”When Mr. Trump sought a second term in 2020, the party’s platform pummeled Democrats for refusing to help Republicans rein in spending and proposed a constitutional requirement that the federal budget be balanced.Those ambitions were cast aside in the platform that the Republican Party unveiled this week ahead of its convention. Nowhere in the 16-page document do the words “debt” or “deficit” as they relate to the nation’s grim fiscal situation appear. The platform included only a glancing reference to slashing “wasteful” spending, a perennial Republican talking point.To budget hawks who have spent years warning that the United States is spending more than it can afford, the omissions signaled the completion of a Republican transformation from a party that once espoused fiscal restraint to one that is beholden to the ideology of Mr. Trump, who once billed himself the “king of debt.”“I am really shocked that the party that I grew up with is now a party that doesn’t think that debt and deficits matter,” said G. William Hoagland, the former top budget expert for Senate Republicans. “We’ve got a deficit deficiency syndrome going on in our party.”The U.S. national debt is approaching $35 trillion and is on pace to top $56 trillion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. At that point, the United States would be spending about as much on interest payments to its lenders — $1.7 trillion — as it does on Medicare.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Haley’s Policy Pitch Recalls a Bygone Era Before Trump’s Rise

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      Nikki Haley’s calls for muscular international engagement and cuts to future Social Security benefits have elicited withering attacks from Donald J. Trump. They used to be Republican orthodoxy.Nikki Haley is appealing to voters with policies that recall an era when the Republican Party stood for a fiscal conscience and foreign policy leadership, at a time when the most sacred of federal programs and the international alliances that built the post-World War II era are under enormous strain.But the voice of contemporary Republican politics, Donald J. Trump, has been there to attack those appeals virtually ever day. On Tuesday, the voters of New Hampshire may decide whether the party can find a path back from Mr. Trump’s big government domestic policy and his isolationism abroad.Ms. Haley’s proposals to raise the retirement age for young workers and trim benefits for the wealthy while protecting Social Security and Medicare benefits for those at or near retirement age may sound familiar to any but the youngest voters. They’re the essentially same plans put forward by Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul D. Ryan in the losing presidential campaign of 2012, and are of a piece with then-President George W. Bush’s failed efforts to transform Social Security from a federally guaranteed pension system to something more akin to a private 401(k) plan.Mr. Romney’s 2012 proposals were taken from the bipartisan commission assembled to address the budget deficit during Barack Obama’s presidency. The recommendations went nowhere.Ms. Haley’s calls to stand by NATO and support Ukraine echo the foreign policies of every president since the Second World War, but particularly the Republicans, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.But Mr. Trump has been relentless in his attacks on all those policies. His suggestions that he could withdraw the United States from NATO prompted President Biden last month to sign legislation barring the president from unilaterally dropping the North Atlantic alliance.At a rally in Concord, N.H., Friday night, he portrayed Ms. Haley as someone who “wants to wipe out your Social Security,” raise the retirement age to 75, “and then you’re dead.”A Trump radio ad placed in New Hampshire on Friday said Ms. Haley’s “devious plan” would “shockingly change the rules” on federal programs for older Americans by raising the retirement age. And a television ad, titled “Threat From Within” and placed the day before, featured retirees looking stricken as they hear that “Haley’s plan cuts Social Security benefits for 82 percent of Americans,” before being reassured, “Trump will never let that happen.”The ads’ claims are false. The 82 percent figure stems from the total number of Americans eligible for Social Security, and Ms. Haley has said repeatedly that she would change nothing for current recipients or those close to eligibility.Republicans are used to coming under fire for the types of ideas that Ms. Haley is pushing. But this time, the fire is coming from the party’s de facto leader.“Whenever you discuss Social Security in a rational way, you’ve immediately gotten skewered, usually by the left,” said Judd Gregg, a retired Republican senator from New Hampshire who made long-term deficit reduction his main cause in Congress. “But in this case it’s by Donald Trump.”Mr. Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have been pushing their own form of fiscal discipline, portraying an end to aid for Ukraine and domestic spending cuts as deficit reduction.Former President Donald J. Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have been pushing their own form of fiscal discipline, couching ending aid to Ukraine and other domestic spending cuts as deficit reduction.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIn truth, their target for cuts mathematically could never put a dent in the federal deficit, which is expected to swell to nearly $1.7 trillion in the fiscal year that ends this Sept. 30, up from $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2023.About 85 percent of the federal budget goes to Social Security, Medicare, other entitlement programs like veterans benefits, the military and interest on the national debt — none of which are on Mr. Trump’s target list. That leaves just 15 percent of total spending, for education, law enforcement, transportation, medical and other scientific research, energy, national parks, and foreign assistance.And with interest rates at their current high levels, even liberal economists worry that if Washington doesn’t start addressing the red ink, the rising cost of paying the government’s debts will crowd out other programs, stifle private investment and hurt the nation’s long-term future. Already, interest payments reached $659 billion last year, the fourth largest item in the federal budget.“In 10 years, the government will be spending more on interest on the national debt than on defense,” warned Thomas Kahn, who was the Democrats’ staff director on the House Budget Committee for 20 years. “The reality is the national debt is out of control, and both parties will need to make politically painful decisions.”Ms. Haley has not broached the ultimate painful decision for Republicans, raising taxes, but she has hit Mr. Trump repeatedly for adding $8 trillion to the federal debt while in office, after promising in the 2016 campaign that he would not only balance the budget but would pay off the debt, which surpassed $34 trillion over the holiday season.Those attacks appear to have delivered only glancing blows to Mr. Trump’s dominance. The former president won the Iowa caucuses on Monday in a landslide, with Ms. Haley a distant third. Polls point to a narrower Trump victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday, then a steep uphill climb for Ms. Haley ahead of the South Carolina primary next month in her home state.But like a modern-day Cassandra, Ms. Haley has not flinched from her warnings that the nation must act now to curtail spending rationally in the largest government programs, Social Security and Medicare, or face more painful, chaotic cuts in the future.“I have seen the commercials you’ve seen,” she told voters on Wednesday in Rochester, N.H. “I will always tell you the truth.”The truth is not pretty. The trustees of Social Security say if nothing is done, the main Social Security program, the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, will deplete its reserves in 2033, which could be the end of a Haley second term. At that point, Social Security would have to rely only on the money coming in from taxes each year. Promised benefits would have to be cut by 23 percent, not for future retirees that Ms. Haley wants to target but for those already drawing benefits.“The only person who wants to cut Social Security is Trump,” said Nachama Soloveichik, the Haley campaign communications director. “Trump’s refusal to save Social Security means 100 percent of Americans will face a 23 percent cut in Social Security benefits in less than 10 years.”Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, dismissed such criticism as still more evidence of Mr. Trump’s righteousness.“Nikki Haley is spiraling out of control and is now resorting to outright lies because she knows her position of increasing the age for Social Security and slashing retirements is an untenable position,” he said. “She should look deep down inside and really address why she wants to throw hard-working Americans off a financial cliff.” More

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      Fact-Checking Trump and Others’ Sparring Over Social Security and Medicare

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      The top presidential candidates are vowing to protect the entitlement programs for current seniors, though some have floated changes for younger generations. But they’ve muddied each other’s current positions.Top contenders for the 2024 presidential election in recent weeks have accused each other of jeopardizing Social Security and Medicare, key entitlement programs for seniors.The future of the programs has been fodder for endless political debate — and distortions — because of the long-term financial challenges they face.Social Security’s main trust fund is currently projected to be depleted in 2033, meaning the program would then be able to pay only about three-quarters of total scheduled benefits. Medicare, for its part, is at risk of not having enough money to fully pay hospitals by 2031.President Biden, former President Donald J. Trump, Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida are among the candidates zeroing in on those vulnerabilities, often by referring to one another’s previous positions.Here’s a fact-check.WHAT WAS SAID“Trump in 2020: We will be cutting Social Security and Medicare”— Biden campaign in a December social media post that includes a clip of Mr. TrumpThis is misleading. The Biden campaign has repeatedly claimed that cutting the programs is one of Mr. Trump’s policies. But while Mr. Trump has in the past suggested he might entertain trims to entitlements, he has repeatedly vowed during his campaign to protect the programs.In this case, the Biden campaign shared a short clip of Mr. Trump during a Fox News town hall in March 2020 and ignored his clarification at the time.The clip shows a Fox News host, Martha MacCallum, telling Mr. Trump, “If you don’t cut something in entitlements, you’ll never really deal with the debt.”“Oh, we’ll be cutting, but we’re also going to have growth like you’ve never had before,” Mr. Trump responded.The Trump administration immediately walked back his comments and said he was referring to cutting deficits. “I will protect your Social Security and Medicare, just as I have for the past 3 years,” Mr. Trump wrote in a post a day later.During his time in office, Mr. Trump did propose some cuts to Medicare — though experts said the cost reductions would not have significantly affected benefits — and to Social Security’s programs for people with disabilities. They were not enacted by Congress.Like other candidates, including Mr. Biden, Mr. Trump has shifted his positions over time. In a 2000 book, Mr. Trump suggested, for people under 40, raising the age for receiving full Social Security retirement benefits to 70. Before that, he said he was open to the idea of privatizing the program, even if he did not like the concept. He no longer advances those positions.Former President Donald J. Trump suggested that the government could avert Social Security changes by expanding drilling, but experts say that would not be enough revenue.Doug Mills/The New York TimesLast January, the former president said in a video that “under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security.” But he has not outlined a clear plan for keeping the programs solvent. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.Mr. Trump suggested last month that the government could avert any Social Security changes by expanding drilling in the United States, but experts say that is not feasible.“Dedicating current oil and gas leasing revenues to Social Security would cover less than 4 percent of its shortfall, and it would be impossible to fix Social Security even if all federal land were opened to drilling operations,” according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.WHAT WAS SAID“And unlike Ron DeSanctimonious, we will always protect Social Security and Medicare for our great seniors. He wanted to knock the hell out of Social Security and Medicare.”— Mr. Trump during a campaign rally in mid-DecemberThis is misleading. While in Congress, Mr. DeSantis supported budget frameworks that proposed raising the full Social Security retirement age to 70, but leaving the early retirement age the same. As a presidential candidate, he has said he would not cut Social Security for seniors but has at times expressed openness to changes for younger people without specifying what those are.Currently, workers are eligible for their full benefits at their full retirement age, which varies from 66 to 67 depending on year of birth. But recipients can qualify for reduced benefits as early as age 62.As a Florida congressman, Mr. DeSantis did vote for Republican budget proposals — which would not have changed the law on their own — that supported gradually raising the full retirement age for Social Security to 70. The proposals did not call for changing the early retirement age.Gov. Ron DeSantis has not made clear his plans for Medicare as he runs for president.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesThe proposals also called for changes to Medicare, including by eventually increasing its retirement age to 67 or 70, from 65, and transitioning the program to “premium support,” in which the government would provide payments for seniors to shop for various health care plans.Mr. DeSantis has not made clear his plans for Medicare as he runs for president, but he has often rejected the idea of changing Social Security. “We’re not going to mess with Social Security as Republicans, I think that that’s pretty clear,” he said in March.That said, he has signaled openness to adjusting the program for younger people. In a July interview on Fox News, Mr. DeSantis said, “Talking about making changes for people in their 30s or 40s, so that the program’s viable, you know, that’s a much different thing, and that’s something that I think there’s going to need to be discussions on.”The DeSantis campaign did not respond to a request for comment.WHAT WAS SAID“Nikki Haley, she has claimed that the retirement age is way, way, way too low. That’s what she said. So you’ve got a lot of people that have worked hard their whole life. Life expectancy is declining in this country. It’s tragic, but it’s true. So to look at those demographic trends and say that you would jack it up so that people are not going to be able to have benefits. I mean, I don’t know why she’s saying that.”— Mr. DeSantis on CNN last monthThis needs context. Life expectancy in the United States dropped during the coronavirus pandemic, but it is inching back up. And Ms. Haley has only called for changes to Social Security for younger people — not unlike what Mr. DeSantis himself has entertained.“The way we deal with it is, we don’t touch anyone’s retirement or anyone who’s been promised in, but we go to people, like my kids in their 20s, when they’re coming into the system, and we say, ‘The rules have changed,’” Ms. Haley said in an August interview with Bloomberg. “We change retirement age to reflect life expectancy.”Ms. Haley did not specify what the new retirement age should be. “What we do know is 65 is way too low, and we need to increase that,” she said when pressed. “We need to do it according to life expectancy.”Nikki Haley has suggested changing the Social Security retirement age for younger generations.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMs. Haley also called for determining benefit adjustments based on inflation, rather than the current cost-of-living calculation, and limiting benefits for the wealthy.On Medicare, Ms. Haley has proposed expanding Medicare Advantage, under which private companies provide plans and are paid by the government to cover the beneficiary.Yet for 2023, the government was projected to spend $27 billion more for Medicare Advantage plans than if those enrollees were in traditional Medicare. Experts note that expanding Medicare Advantage while achieving overall savings would require structural changes that would be politically challenging to implement.“It would require a change in payment policy that would likely run into fierce opposition,” said Tricia Neuman, senior vice president at the health nonprofit KFF and executive director for its program on Medicare policy.Curious about the accuracy of a claim? Email factcheck@nytimes.com. More

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      Nikki Haley’s Views on Social Security

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      More from our inbox:A Climate Protest at the OperaMore Trump Coverage? Brian Snyder/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Haley Is Coming for Your Retirement,” by Paul Krugman (column, Nov. 28):Mr. Krugman is right in pointing out the inequality connected to proposals to raise the age at which one becomes eligible for Social Security. As he points out, the proposals are, “in effect, saying that the aging janitors must keep working (or be cast into extreme poverty) because rich bankers are living longer.”But it’s even worse than that. The problem of an impending shortfall of the Social Security Trust Fund is in significant part a consequence of our rising economic inequality. High-income people pay a smaller share of their income into Social Security because salary over $160,200 — the so-called “tax max” — is not subject to the Social Security tax.Also, there is no Social Security tax on income from capital (including dividends, interest, capital gains and rents), which tends to go to wealthy people. Consequently, as a larger and larger part of our national income goes to the rich, the share collected by the Social Security tax declines.The solution is not hard to envision: Raise the “tax max” and tax income from capital. Better yet, adopt a set of policies that would move us toward a more equal distribution of income.Arthur MacEwanCambridge, Mass.The writer is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston.To the Editor:As a member of Gen Z, I commend Nikki Haley for suggesting ideas to keep Social Security solvent. Raising the retirement age is not a pleasant thought, but tough times require tough decisions. Our national debt is at a record high, and interest repayments are reaching worrying levels. Changes have to be made if the country’s finances are to stay healthy. Numbers don’t lie.I, for one, do not expect to ever be able to collect Social Security, despite having paid 6.2 percent of my income into it over my entire working life. I would rather get rid of the tax altogether than continue to pretend that Social Security will still be around when I retire.I have absolutely zero faith that members of Congress will fix this problem; they have been kicking this can down the road for longer than I’ve been alive.Eric FuquaAtlantaTo the Editor:Paul Krugman’s piece on Nikki Haley makes it quite clear that she is far from the perfect candidate, but what it does not address is the critical role that she may play.The Economist recently described Donald Trump as the gravest danger to the world in 2024, and considering viable alternatives, apart from Nikki Haley, there is only one 81-year-old man with major failings of his own standing in Donald Trump’s way.Even with all her shortcomings, there are strong reasons to support Nikki Haley, as she may be best positioned to save our democracy and the world from Donald Trump.Jon LandauPhiladelphiaA Climate Protest at the OperaThe Metropolitan Opera House, center, at Lincoln Center.Kathy Willens/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Climate Protesters Interrupt Met Performance of Wagner’s ‘Tannhäuser’” (news article, nytimes.com, Dec. 1):The recent climate protest at the opera made my heart sink.I’m a climate activist. I’ve marched, I’ve lobbied, I’ve contacted legislators. I’m co-leader of a local chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a grass-roots organization that believes that effective change will come about through respectful dialogue — and the sheer force of numbers.I’m also a professional singer and an operagoer. And I cringe when I see protesters disrupt the arts to make their point. The very people who might be inclined to help contribute to the urgent cause of fighting global warming may well be sitting in that opera house. But these protesters chose to alienate them. How in the world is that productive?The most effective path toward change is to work with others, not against them. We need dedicated, respectful activists who do their work by finding common ground and then gently but insistently nudging all of us forward.What we don’t need is this kind of spectacle, which gives the rest of us climate activists a bad name, and serves as an affront to the music and art we all need to inspire us in a troubled world.Francesca Huemer KellyHighland Park, Ill.More Trump Coverage?For years, President Biden and Democrats have been happy to mostly ignore Donald J. Trump. But now their thinking appears to be changing as the 2024 election season begins to ramp up.Sophie Park for The New York Times, Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Democrats Want Trump Plastered All Over the News” (news article, Nov. 22):How soon we forget. Think back to Wednesday morning, Nov. 9, 2016. Whether you supported and voted for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, you were likely shocked when you heard the final results.Now, Democrats are hoping that heavy media coverage of Mr. Trump, assuming he is the nominee, will remind Americans of his flawed character, his lies, his legal troubles and his hate-filled rhetoric, and this will repel them.But back in 2015 and 2016, Mr. Trump was far from invisible, enjoying plenty of media coverage: as a failed TV star and businessman, as a clown and an entertainer, not to be taken seriously. The polls at the time were suggesting that Mrs. Clinton was the heavy favorite, so many Americans either stayed home or voted for Mr. Trump as a joke or an anti-Hillary statement.Why would we think next year’s coverage won’t still focus on Mr. Trump’s entertainment value as much as on his lies, his threats and his crimes?Democrats may ask for more news coverage, but we should be careful what we wish for.Betsy FrankMattituck, N.Y. More

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      Nikki Haley Is Coming for Your Retirement

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      It feels like years ago, but actually only a few months have passed since many big Republican donors seemed to believe that Ron DeSantis could effectively challenge Donald Trump for the Republican nomination. It has been an edifying spectacle — an object lesson in the reality that great wealth need not be associated with good judgment, about politics or anything else.At this point, both conventional wisdom and prediction markets say that Trump has a virtual lock on the nomination. But Wall Street isn’t completely resigned to Trump’s inevitability; there has been a late surge in big-money support for Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina. And there is, to be fair, still a chance that Trump — who is facing many criminal charges and whose public rants have become utterly unhinged — will manage to crash and burn before securing the nomination.So it seems worth looking at what Haley stands for.From a political point of view, one answer might be: nothing. A recent Times profile described her as having “an ability to calibrate her message to the moment.” A less euphemistic way to put this is that she seems willing to say whatever might work to her political advantage. “Flip-flopping” doesn’t really convey the sheer cynicism with which she has shifted her rhetoric and changed her positions on everything from abortion rights to immigration to whether it’s OK to try overturning a national election.And anyone hoping that she would govern as a moderate if she should somehow make it to the White House is surely delusional. Haley has never really shown a willingness to stand up to Republican extremists — and at this point the whole G.O.P. has been taken over by extremists.That said, Haley has shown some consistency on issues of economic and fiscal policy. And what you should know is that her positions on these issues are pretty far to the right. In particular, she seems exceptionally explicit, even among would-be Republican nominees, in calling for an increase in the age at which Americans become eligible for Social Security — a bad idea that seems to be experiencing a revival.So let’s talk about Social Security.The first thing you should know about Social Security is that the actual numbers don’t justify the apocalyptic rhetoric one often hears, not just from the right but from self-proclaimed centrists who want to sound serious. No, the exhaustion of the system’s trust fund, currently projected to occur in roughly a decade, wouldn’t mean that benefits disappear.It would mean that the system would need additional revenue to continue paying scheduled benefits in full. But the extra revenue required would be smaller than you probably think. The most recent long-term projections from the Congressional Budget Office show Social Security outlays rising to 6.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2053 from 5.1 percent this year, not exactly an earth-shattering increase.It’s true that the budget office projects a much bigger rise in spending on Medicare and other major health programs. But much of this projected rise reflects the assumption that medical costs will rise much faster than economic growth, which has been true in the past but need not be true in the future. Indeed, since 2010, Medicare spending has been far less than expected. And there is every reason to believe that smart policies could further curb health care costs, given how much more America spends than other wealthy nations.Still, Social Security does face a funding gap. How should it be closed?Anyone who says, as Haley does, that the retirement age should rise in line with increasing life expectancy is being oblivious, perhaps willfully, to the grim inequality of modern America. Until Covid struck, average life expectancy at 65, the relevant number, was indeed rising. But these gains were concentrated among Americans with relatively high incomes. Less affluent Americans — those who depend most on Social Security — have seen little rise in life expectancy, and in some cases actual declines.So anyone invoking rising life expectancy as a reason to delay Social Security benefits is, in effect, saying that aging janitors must keep working (or be cast into extreme poverty) because bankers are living longer.How, then, should the Social Security gap be closed? The obvious answer — which happens to be favored by a majority of voters — is to raise more revenue. Remember, America collects less revenue as a percentage of G.D.P. than almost any other advanced economy.But Haley, of course, wants to cut income taxes.My guess is that none of this will be relevant, that Trump will be the nominee. But if he stumbles, I would beg political reporters not to focus on Haley’s personal affect, which can seem moderate, but rather on her policies. On social issues and the fate of democracy, she appears to be a pure weather vane, turning with the political winds. On fiscal and economic policy, she’s a hard-right advocate of tax cuts for the rich and benefit cuts for the working class. If calling someone a “populist” has any meaning these days, she’s the exact opposite.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The G.O.P. Goes Full-on Extremist

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      There are no moderate Republicans in the House of Representatives.Oh, no doubt some members are privately appalled by the views of Mike Johnson, the new speaker. But what they think in the privacy of their own minds isn’t important. What matters is what they do — and every single one of them went along with the selection of a radical extremist.In fact, Johnson is more extreme than most people, I think even political reporters, fully realize.Much of the reporting on Johnson has, understandably, focused on his role in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Let me say, by the way, that the widely used term “election denial” is a euphemism that softens and blurs what we’re really talking about. Trying to keep your party in power after it lost a free and fair election, without a shred of evidence of significant fraud, isn’t just denial; it’s a betrayal of democracy.There has also been considerable coverage of Johnson’s right-wing social views, but I’m not sure how many people grasp the depth of his intolerance. Johnson isn’t just someone who wants to legalize discrimination against L.G.B.T.Q. Americans and ban gay marriage; he’s on record as defending the criminalization of gay sex.But Johnson’s extremism, and that of the party that chose him, goes beyond rejecting democracy and trying to turn back the clock on decades of social progress. He has also espoused a startlingly reactionary economic agenda.Until his sudden elevation to speaker, Johnson was a relatively little-known figure. But he did serve for a time as chairman of the Republican Study Committee, a group that devises policy proposals. And now that Johnson has become the face of his party, people really should look at the budget proposal the committee released for 2020 under his chairmanship.For if you read that proposal carefully, getting past the often mealy-mouthed language, you realize that it calls for the evisceration of the U.S. social safety net — not just programs for the poor, but also policies that form the bedrock of financial stability for the American middle class.Start with Social Security, where the budget calls for raising the retirement age — already set to rise to 67 — to 69 or 70, with possible further increases as life expectancy rises.On the surface, this might sound plausible. Until Covid produced a huge drop, average U.S. life expectancy at age 65 was steadily rising over time. But there is a huge and growing gap between the number of years affluent Americans can expect to live and life expectancy for lower-income groups, including not just the poor but also much of the working class. So raising the retirement age would fall hard on less fortunate Americans — precisely the people who depend most on Social Security.Then there’s Medicare, for which the budget proposes increasing the eligibility age “so it is aligned with the normal retirement age for Social Security and then indexing this age to life expectancy.” Translation: Raise the Medicare age from 65 to 70, then keep raising it.Wait, there’s more. Most nonelderly Americans receive health insurance through their employers. But this system depends greatly on policies that the study committee proposed eliminating. You see, benefits don’t count as taxable income — but in order to maintain this tax advantage, companies (roughly speaking) must cover all their employees, as opposed to offering benefits only to highly compensated individuals.The committee budget would eliminate this incentive for broad coverage by limiting the tax deduction for employer benefits and offering the same deduction for insurance purchased by individuals. As a result, some employers would probably just give their top earners cash, which they could use to buy expensive individual plans, while dropping coverage for the rest of their workers.Oh, and it goes almost without saying that the budget would impose savage cuts — $3 trillion over a decade — on Medicaid, children’s health coverage and subsidies that help lower-income Americans afford insurance under the Affordable Care Act.How many Americans would lose health insurance under these proposals? Back in 2017 the Congressional Budget Office estimated that Donald Trump’s attempt to repeal Obamacare would cause 23 million Americans to lose coverage. The Republican Study Committee’s proposals are far more draconian and far-reaching, so the losses would presumably be much bigger.So Mike Johnson is on record advocating policies on retirement, health care and other areas I don’t have space to get into, like food stamps, that would basically end American society as we know it. We would become a vastly crueler and less secure nation, with far more sheer misery.I think it’s safe to say that these proposals would be hugely unpopular — if voters knew about them. But will they?Actually, I’d like to see some focus groups asking what Americans think of Johnson’s policy positions. Here’s my guess, based on previous experience: Many voters will simply refuse to believe that prominent Republicans, let alone the speaker of the House, are really advocating such terrible things.But they are and he is. The G.O.P. has gone full-on extremist, on economic as well as social issues. The question now is whether the American public will notice.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Fact-Checking Mike Pence on the Campaign Trail

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      The former vice president has made misleading claims about abortion, fiscal policy and military spending.Since beginning his long-shot presidential campaign in June, former Vice President Mike Pence has struggled to gain traction among Republican primary voters.Mr. Pence has consistently polled in the single digits behind the two leading contenders: his onetime running mate, former President Donald J. Trump, and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. The former vice president has broken with them most starkly on their approaches to Social Security and Medicare. He has also carved out clear positions supporting a 15-week national abortion ban and wholeheartedly backing American involvement in the war in Ukraine.Mr. Pence has made some inaccurate claims along the way. Here’s a fact check of some of his recent remarks on the campaign trail.AbortionWhat Mr. Pence Said“I did, this week, call on every other candidate for the Republican nomination to support a minimum standard of a 15-week ban on abortion at the national level that would align American law with most of the countries in Europe that literally ban abortion after 12 to 15 weeks. Our laws at the national level today are more aligned with North Korea, China and Iran than with other Western countries in Europe.”— in a June interview on Fox News SundayThis is misleading. Mr. Pence’s comparison is overly simplistic and glosses over how abortion laws in Europe work in practice. It is also worth noting that many European countries are moving toward relaxing abortion restrictions, not imposing additional ones, as The Upshot has reported.Of some four dozen countries in Europe, almost all have legalized elective abortion before 10 to 15 weeks of pregnancy. All of these countries allow abortions after the gestational limit if the mother’s life is in danger and about half do so for cases involving sexual violence — two exceptions that Mr. Pence has said he also supports. But many also allow for broader exceptions, like the socioeconomic circumstances or mental health of the mother, which Mr. Pence’s proposal does not include.In Britain, for example, an abortion must be approved by two doctors, but those requests are generally granted up to 24 weeks. In Denmark and Germany, exceptions for gestational limits of 12 weeks are made for mental and physical health as well as living conditions.At least three countries also have more permissive gestational cutoffs than Mr. Pence’s proposal: Iceland at 22 weeks, the Netherlands at 24 weeks and Sweden at 18 weeks.In contrast, China allows elective abortions without specifying gestational limits in its national laws, according to the World Health Organization. China also has said in recent years that it will aim to reduce the number of “medically unnecessary” abortions, and at least one province has prohibited abortions after 14 weeks.North Korea’s laws on abortion are unclear. In 2015, the authorities issued a directive barring doctors from performing abortions, according to the World Health Organization, but “there are no documents after 2015” on the legality of the procedure.In the United States, after the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion last summer, the legal status of abortion varies widely from state to state. In some, the procedure is banned with no exceptions, and in others it is enshrined as a right with no gestational limits. A spokesman for Mr. Pence cited nine such states as exceptionally nonrestrictive.Fiscal policyWhat Mr. Pence Said“Well, first off, look, Joe Biden’s policy on our national debt is insolvency. And, sadly, my former running mate’s policy is identical to Joe Biden’s. Both of them say they’re not even going to talk about common sense and compassionate reforms to entitlements to spare future generations of a mountain range of debt.”— in the Fox News Sunday interviewThis is exaggerated. Asked about his calls to overhaul Social Security and Medicare, Mr. Pence criticized Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Biden’s approaches to the social programs as irresponsible. While both have said they would not cut benefits, only Mr. Biden has proposed tax increases to shore up both programs. But equating that position to one of accepting total insolvency is overstated.Currently, Social Security and Medicare both face financial shortfalls. The fund that pays for Social Security retirement benefits is projected to be depleted by 2033, and the fund that pays hospitals for Medicare patients will be exhausted in 2031. At those points, the funds will be able to pay for only 77 percent of retirement benefits and 89 percent of scheduled fees to hospitals.During the 2020 campaign, Mr. Biden proposed increasing taxes on high-income earners to pay for additional Social Security benefits. The extra funding would reduce the program’s financial shortfall, though the revenue would not close the gap entirely. While his latest presidential budget, released in March, does not mention that proposal, it does include a plan to extend the solvency of Medicare by 25 years by imposing higher taxes on the wealthy.Mr. Trump’s position on social safety net programs is a bit harder to pin down. In January 2020, he said he would be willing to consider cuts to the social safety nets “at some point” — though he quickly tried to walk back his comments and vowed to protect Social Security. His last presidential budget proposal, in February 2020, did not cut benefits to either program, but sought Medicare savings through a dozen tweaks like reducing payments to providers and reducing the cost of prescription drugs.More recently, Mr. Trump vowed in a speech in March at the Conservative Political Action Conference that “we are never going back” to proposals to raise the Social Security retirement age or cut Medicare benefits. But Mr. Trump has not yet outlined his stance on either program in more detail or addressed their solvency issues in this campaign cycle.The Pence campaign argued that neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Biden has a current plan for Social Security, and that Mr. Biden’s plan for Medicare just delays the financial shortfall.Mr. Pence has made misleading claims about abortion, fiscal policy and military spending.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesClassified documentsWhat Mr. Pence Said“I mean, when I informed the Department of Justice that we had classified materials potentially in our home, they were at my home. The F.B.I. was on my front doorstep the next day. And what we found out was that, when Joe Biden apparently alerted the Department of Justice, 80 days later, they showed up at his office.”— in a CNN town hall in JuneThis is exaggerated. Upon the discovery of classified documents in their personal residences, Mr. Pence and Mr. Biden both cooperated with government inquiries. Mr. Pence has a point that the Justice Department’s responses to the discoveries were not identical, but he is overstating the differences.In Mr. Biden’s case, the searches occurred a few weeks — not three months — after the discovery of classified documents. In Mr. Pence’s case, the search occurred about three weeks later.On Nov. 2, lawyers for Mr. Biden discovered classified documents at the offices of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think tank in Washington. On the same day, according to Biden administration officials, the lawyers alerted the National Archives and Records Administration, which is responsible for securing such documents. The next day, the National Archives retrieved the documents and referred the matter to the Justice Department. The F.B.I. searched the think tank in mid-November.On Dec. 20, Mr. Biden’s aides discovered a second set of classified documents at his home in Wilmington, Del. The same day, they alerted the U.S. attorney leading the investigation about the discovery. A month later, on Jan. 20, the F.B.I. searched the residence and seized additional documents. And on Feb. 1, the F.B.I. searched Mr. Biden’s vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., but did not find additional classified documents.The discovery of classified documents in Mr. Biden’s possession prompted aides for Mr. Pence to search his home in Indiana out of caution. They found about a dozen documents with classified markings on Jan. 16 and alerted the National Archives to the discovery in a letter dated Jan. 18. The Justice Department, rather than the records agency, then retrieved the documents from Mr. Pence’s home on Jan. 19. Nearly a month later, on Feb. 10, the F.B.I. searched Mr. Pence’s home and found one additional document.The Pence campaign argued that the Justice Department, in directly requesting the documents from Mr. Pence, bypassed the standard procedures, which did not occur in Mr. Biden’s case.Unlike the Biden and Trump cases, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland did not appoint a special counsel to investigate Mr. Pence’s handling of classified materials. The Justice Department has also declined to prosecute Mr. Pence while the inquiry into Mr. Biden remains ongoing.Funding for the militaryWhat Mr. Pence Said“Since Joe Biden took office, he’s been working to cut military spending.”— at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa in JulyThis is false. Mr. Biden’s annual budgets have generally asked for more funding for the military, and actual spending has increased each year.Mr. Biden’s first budget, released in 2021, proposed $715 billion for the Pentagon, essentially keeping funding level. That was a 1.6 percent increase from the previous year and a 0.4 percent decrease when adjusted for inflation. In December of that year, he signed into law a $770 billion defense package.After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Mr. Biden’s proposals and congressional appropriators amped up military spending even more.The budget he released in 2022 requested $773 billion in military spending, a nearly 10 percent increase from the previous year. He eventually signed into law an $858 billion spending policy bill.And Mr. Biden’s latest budget, released in March, asked for $842 billion for the military, a 3.2 percent increase from the previous year, and $886 billion total for national defense. That legislation is currently going through the appropriations process in Congress. The Pence campaign argued that this amounted to a cut, as the rate of inflation outstrips the rate of increase.At the Iowa event, Mr. Pence cited Mr. Biden’s debt ceiling deal with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as an example of a proposed 1 percent cut to the military. Under that deal, military spending is set at the president’s proposed amount of $886 billion and would rise to $895 billion in 2025. But all spending, for both the military and domestic programs, would be subject to a 1 percent cut if Congress does not pass annual spending bills by January.We welcome suggestions and tips from readers on what to fact-check on email and Twitter. More