Fox News host and Donald Trump adviser Sean Hannity claims that Vice President Kamala Harris is lying when she says Trump’s proposals would threaten the solvency of Social Security. But according to a new study, Trump’s tax plans would drain the Social Security Trust Fund in just six years, triggering devastating cuts to the payments seniors depend on if no further changes are made.

Trump’s “campaign proposals would dramatically worsen Social Security’s finances,” according to the analysis of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB):

President Trump’s proposals to eliminate taxation of Social Security benefits, end taxes on tips and overtime, impose tariffs, and expand deportations would all widen Social Security’s cash deficits. Under our central estimate, we find that President Trump’s agenda would:

• Increase Social Security’s ten-year cash shortfall by $2.3 trillion through FY 2035.
• Advance insolvency by three years, from FY 2034 to FY 2031 – hastening the next President’s insolvency timeline by one-third.
• Lead to a 33 percent across-the-board benefit cut in 2035, up from the 23 percent CBO projects under current law.
• Increase Social Security’s annual shortfall by roughly 50 percent in FY 2035, from 3.6 to 4 percent of payroll.
• Require the equivalent of reducing current law benefits by about one-third or increasing revenue by about one-half to restore 75-year solvency.

2) Under current law, CBO projects #SocialSecurity will run out of reserves by 2034 –– nine years after the next president takes office –– leading to a 23% across-the-board benefit cut.



Under Trump’s plans, beneficiaries face a 𝟑𝟑 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 benefit cut starting in 2031.… pic.twitter.com/LmlxV7L1ye

— Marc Goldwein (@MarcGoldwein) October 21, 2024

5) Although benefits would be cut by 33% by 2035, the net effect would be less for some.



Because the plan ends taxation of benefits, the very richest seniors would face only a 3 percent cut in real after-tax benefits.



The large majority of seniors would face 25%-33% cuts.



5/ pic.twitter.com/HPf7lPL7X8

— Marc Goldwein (@MarcGoldwein) October 21, 2024

Trump adviser and Project 2025 contributor Stephen Moore has argued such changes are good policy because “we want people to keep working. We want to keep incentivizing people once they turn 65, or 66, or 70.”  

Democrats, meanwhile, typically favor extending the solvency of Social Security by increasing taxes on wealthy Americans rather than cutting benefits for vulnerable seniors. 

Fox News and its right-wing counterparts rarely discuss Social Security because they want Republicans to win elections and they recognize that the right’s proposals are generally politically toxic. When Trump suggested in a March interview that he would consider cutting Social Security benefits — a mainstay of right-wing punditry -- Fox ignored the remarks.

But when Trump’s propagandists talk about one of the most successful federal programs in history, which sustains tens of millions of American seniors, they stress that he and his party are committed to defending it, claiming suggestions otherwise are lies.

“At multiple rallies today in North Carolina, Harris also continued her long-running lie that Donald Trump wants to cut your Social Security,” Hannity complained last month. “But the official Republican Party platform and Donald Trump in his own words over and over again say just the opposite. As you can see on your screen, a complete and total lie from Kamala Harris.”

Hannity may be willing to take Trump at his word, but CRFB’s analysis shows Harris is correct that the former president’s plans would devastate Social Security.