This is a guest opinion column

Republicans reacted raucously earlier this month when President Joe Biden relayed one of the most basic, fundamental truths about American politics during his State of the Union address: Republican politicians want to cut Social Security and Medicare. The word “liar” could be heard during this section of the speech multiple times, and the camera panned to several Republican members with looks meant to portray bewilderment (presumably, some of them are gunning for Oscar nominations).

We know that all the cries from politicians and the commentariat amount to the hollers of a hit dog because we can just look back at their proposals and see them! They haven’t been able to memory hole their plans to cut these programs – they’re easily accessible.

Most concretely we can look at the proposal put forward only a year ago by the Republican Study Committee (RSC). The RSC is the largest caucus of Republicans in the House – 156 members, nearly three times the size of the Freedom Caucus. What do they propose? For Medicare, they propose increasing the eligibility age from 65 to 67. For social security, they want to raise the retirement age from 67 to 70. This means a 20% cut in social security benefits and saddling 65 and 66 year olds with thousands of dollars more each year in healthcare costs.

More radically – some want to completely get rid of these programs. Republican Senator Mike Lee, from Utah, said in 2010: “It will be my objective to phase out Social Security, to pull it up from the roots and get rid of it.”

Much more common for politicians is the refusal to directly answer questions while revealing their intentions to anyone paying attention. Back in October, Kevin McCarthy refused to “predetermine” whether or not Social Security or Medicare would be on the table in debt limit negotiations, although he has since taken them off the table for now.

This behavior is not anomalous. Conservative Republicans have always been opposed to these programs (like any program that helps working people). Republicans claimed the effect of these programs would be like the “lash of the dictator” while they were being debated. This tradition of likening programs that support working people in their old age to despotism was continued by Barry Goldwater in his 1960 book The Conscience of a Conservative.

To be sure, Democratic politicians have also locked arms with Republicans to attempt to damage the programs. No less than Biden himself was playing the role of a fiscal hawk in the 70s, saying that we should freeze federal spending including Medicare and Social Security (and yes – this would mean a cut). Most recently, Obama was willing to execute cuts to the program, but Republicans at the time – thankfully – were too stubborn to take yes for an answer.

Fortunately, working people have pushed back enough that today cuts to these programs are verboten for Democratic politicians. Meanwhile Republicans, as illustrated above, are very much still interested in pursuing these cuts, even if they have been maneuvered by Biden into committing to taking cuts off the table for now.

Some people will try to dress up cuts as the only way to save these programs, and then they’ll say that because these proposals are the only way to save these programs, they are therefore not cuts. We all know this is silly because 1) a cut is still a cut even if it is the only path forward and 2) cuts are not the only option.

This is not to say that because of the way social security and Medicare are structured, there won’t be issues in the coming years. Specifically, in 2034, left alone Social Security payments will be cut by 23%. Beginning in 2028, Medicare will only be able to cover an estimated 90% of hospital insurance costs.

So we should have a conversation about the best way to ensure the continuity of these programs. And fortunately, contrary to what the advocates of austerity would have you believe – cuts are not the only way to ensure they continue without issue.

Just this week, the Social Security Expansion was reintroduced, which would not only maintain the current level of payments, but increase them by $2,400 by simply lifting the cap on social security tax on income over $250,000. This will ensure the solvency of social security for seventy five years even with the added payments. It will also not raise taxes on anyone making under $250,000, while ensuring it is no longer the case that a Wall Street CEO making $30M pays the same amount into social security as a small business owner who makes $160,000.

Similarly, there are a number of proposals that would allow Medicare to cut spending (by, for example, negotiating drug costs) and increase revenue (by, for example, increasing taxes on people and corporations that disproportionately benefited from the pandemic) without forcing Medicare recipients to pay more for care.

So let’s have the conversation! But to do that, we must be able to be honest about it.

The honest assessment of every single Republican proposal to “reform” social security is that seniors get less. The beneficiaries of these plans are the wealthy who get their taxes cut or don’t have to pay new ones, not the average American. And contrary to what Republicans and even some conservative Democrats would have you believe, when they propose working people get less in their old age, they propose a cut.

Jacob Morrison is host of The Valley Labor Report, Alabama’s only union talk radio show, Secretary-Treasurer of the North Alabama Area Labor Council, and sometimes freelance labor reporter. You can contact him at [email protected] or follow him on twitter: @jacobm_al