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Regulation and Compliance > Legislation

House Panel Advances Bill to 'Fast Track' Social Security Cuts

By Melanie Waddell

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The House Budget Committee advanced Thursday by a 22-12 vote H.R. 5779, the Fiscal Commission Act of 2023, legislation that would set up a fiscal commission to address the nation’s national debt and make “fast track” changes to Social Security, according to critics, including possible cuts to the program.

The bill moves to the House floor.

“Republicans are plowing ahead with their closed-door commission designed to cut Social Security and Medicare,” Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, said Thursday after the vote. “Many of the Republicans tried to claim that was not their goal, but they tellingly voted down Democratic amendments to rule out cutting those programs and instead require billionaires to pay their fair share.”

The vast majority of Democrats on the committee, Altman continued, “rightfully opposed the commission. Shame on the handful of exceptions,” she said. Reps. Scott Peters and Jimmy Panetta of California, as well as Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., voted for the bill.

The White House “has rightfully referred to the commission as a ‘death panel for Medicare and Social Security,’” Altman said.

Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., ranking member on the committee, said during his opening remarks at the markup hearing Thursday that “there are absolutely those who are getting ready to use a commission as a backdoor way to force through unpopular cuts that I completely oppose and will completely oppose.”

Boyle added: “We need, and I will forcefully argue, for us to have the courage to vote to increase the revenues into Social Security and Medicare. And if we do that, we can put both on firm footing [as the Chief Actuaries of the Social Security Administration and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have] verified. We can put both trust funds on the path to full solvency for the rest of this century. We don’t need a commission to do that.”

Max Richtman, president and CEO, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, added in another statement that a fiscal commission “is designed to give individual members of Congress political cover for cutting Americans’ earned benefits. Any changes to Social Security and Medicare should go through regular order and not be relegated to a commission unaccountable to the public and rushed through the Congress. This bill should be opposed by any member of Congress who cares about Social Security, Medicare, and their constituents who depend on them.”

The Fiscal Commission Act of 2024 was introduced by Reps. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., and Scott Peters, D-Calif., co-chairs of the Bipartisan Fiscal Forum. It would create a bipartisan fiscal commission “to address the unsustainable rise in the national debt as well as ailing federal trust funds,” according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., and Mitt Romney, R-Utah, have introduced a similar bill, the Fiscal Stability Act. The bills combined have the support of 17 Republicans, 15 Democrats and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz.

Debt Threat

Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said Thursday in a statement that a bipartisan fiscal commission “would give the country’s dire fiscal situation the proper attention it deserves. In the last two decades, the national debt has tripled as a share of the economy, and modest surpluses at the start of the millennium have been replaced with $2 trillion annual deficits.”

Said MacGuineas: “We’re headed towards uncharted territory if we don’t do something soon. Interest on the debt is already the fastest-growing part of the budget and more than we spend on children or Medicaid. In three years, we’ll spend more on interest than national defense, and by mid-century, interest will be the largest line item in the entire federal budget.

“Meanwhile, the Social Security, Medicare Hospital Insurance, and Highway trust funds are all headed toward insolvency within a decade. Without changes, the average couple retiring in 2033 will receive a $17,400 cut in their Social Security benefits, regardless of need.”

While establishing a commission “won’t solve these problems,” MacGuineas added, “it will give policymakers the opportunity to at least discuss them seriously, and hopefully identify policy solutions that Congress can then enact into law. Commissions have worked in the past, and a new commission is probably our best current hope for curing our fiscal woes.”

Melanie Waddell

@Think_MelanieW

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