The Hill – by Nathaniel Weixel
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Wednesday said House Republicans will aim to cut spending on Medicare, Medicaid and welfare programs next year as a way to trim the federal deficit.
“We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit,” Ryan said during an interview on Ross Kaminsky’s talk radio show.
Health-care entitlements such as Medicare and Medicaid “are the big drivers of debt,” Ryan said, “so we spend more time on the health-care entitlements, because that’s really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking.”
Ryan said he’s been speaking privately with President Trump, who is beginning to warm to the idea of slowing the spending growth in entitlements.
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly promised not to cut Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security.
“I think the president is understanding choice and competition works everywhere, especially in Medicare,” Ryan said.
House and Senate Republicans are currently working on their plans for tax reform, which are estimated to add more than $1 trillion to the deficit. Democrats have voiced concerns that the legislation could lead to cuts to the social safety net.
Ryan is one of a growing number of GOP leaders who have mentioned the need for Congress to cut entitlement spending next year.
Last week, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said that once the tax bill was done, “welfare reform” was up next.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), last week, said “instituting structural changes to Social Security and Medicare for the future” will be the best way to reduce spending and generate economic growth.
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told Bloomberg TV that “the most important thing we can do with respect to the national debt, what we need to do, is obviously reform current entitlement programs for future generations.”
Ryan also mentioned that he wants to work on changing the welfare system, and Republicans have in the past expressed a desire to add work requirements to programs such as food stamps.
Speaking on the Senate floor while debating the tax bill last week, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said he had a “rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger and expect the federal government to do everything.”
His comments were echoed by Ryan.
“We have a welfare system that’s trapping people in poverty and effectively paying people not to work,” Ryan said Wednesday. “We’ve got to work on that.”
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/363642-ryan-pledges-entitlement-reform-in-2018
Social security is “NOT” an entitlement program, it’s something the majority of USA citizens pay into in order to have money for retirement—–it established was during the great stock market crash to stave off poverty. Furthermore, if they ever paid back all the money they stole/borrowed from it with interest, it would last forever as they used i as a private ATM. Problem is they now want Wall Street involved which would bankrupt the system and become their own private cash cow to do as they want..
social security is not entitlement.
GO AHEAD YOU COMMIE SONOFABITCH. GIVE ME A REASON TO HUNT YOU DOWN LIKE A DOG…………………………..
Every year, I read how I’m going to get less, if anything at all. Pay all of your life, and get shit in the end. Our parents had it made, we got screwed.
Our generation got the fork in the ass.
@ WIL E.KOYOTE ( SUPER GENIUS) Wow you have issues. so much for the super genius tag you use—-calling me a commie only shows your ignorance of the history of SS, why it was established in the first place—-dude—your brain must hurt when you think and comment
Wow, you really are a group of second rate hacks, as trolling shills go. You don’t even know who you are talking to.
Bye, moron.
🙂
DEAR ASSHOLE,
I’VE PAID S.S. ALL MY DAMN LIFE.
IF I CANT DRAW IT OUT , THEN THE BURDEN WILL BE TO MUCH ON MY FAMILY.
COMMUNIST SUMBITCHES LIKE YOU MAKE ME WANNA PUKE.
LOL… shoulda seen the reply I made to that @sswipe about a week or so ago, WIL. E.
Been a helluva long time since Henry’s deleted one of my comments.
It WAS pretty vicious, however. 🙂
you commie scumbags…….you created the problem when you sold this country out to foreign entities, taking away jobs held by American Nationals…you have been maiming and killing us with vaccines, genetically modified ‘food’ and countless other ways … now you want to kill millions of us by taking away the measly crumbs that barely sustain us……stop aiding and abetting the illegal aliens that you so welcome with open arms….stop foreign aid- beginning with Israel —-stop your gd wars ……if your answer to the deficit is to kill Americans then you are most definitely a traitor….. may all the pain and suffering you so easily inflict on us fall upon you tenfold
Start with yourself Paul and your buds
“the most important thing we can do with respect to the national debt, what we need to do, is obviously reform current entitlement programs for future generations.”
No, the most important thing we can do with respect to the national debt is to tell the stinking jews to f%&k off, they’re not getting another dime.
Naturally, we’d have to hang all their commie cohorts here first.
LOL… bad day for trolls, seen 3 aced already. 🙂
Coming out of the woodwork.
Must be the Yuletide trolls.