Fox News personalities and guests are minimizing concerns about Republican plans to cut entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, and instead claiming Democrats are engaging in “scare tactics” ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. But the GOP has proposed multiple plans that would threaten these programs if they take control of the House.
According to Bloomberg Government, House Republicans plan to weaponize the debt ceiling in future budget negotiations to accomplish the GOP’s “top priorities” if they win control in the upcoming midterm elections. All four Republicans vying for the next potential House Budget Committee chairmanship support this plan and are focused on slashing entitlement program funding. But mainstream media largely ignored Bloomberg's bombshell reporting until House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) endorsed this strategy. (Even after McCarthy’s announcement, Media Matters found that CNN devoted roughly 14 minutes to a new paint job on former President Donald Trump’s plane compared to 11 minutes on the GOP’s debt ceiling plot.)
Mainstream media are failing to inform the American public of what is at stake in the midterms: Social Security and Medicare. Meanwhile, right-wing media led by Fox News are downplaying and concealing the GOP’s threat to entitlements as part of their larger effort to boost Republicans in the upcoming elections.
GOP leaders have been working to cut Social Security and Medicare for decades, and their current efforts go beyond the reported debt ceiling plot. The Republican Study Committee, a group which includes 75% of House Republicans as members, released a proposed budget that would cut both programs by introducing stricter requirements, raising the age for retirement and Medicare eligibility, and turning the latter into a system of means-tested vouchers. Senate Budget Committee member Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has also suggested that Social Security should be reauthorized annually as discretionary spending, which would necessarily put the program at risk, and according to Richard Johnson, director of the Program on Retirement Policy at the Urban Institute, “would create a lot of uncertainty for retirees and for people with disabilities.”
Senate Budget Committee member Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) has proposed a plan more extreme than even some of its critics have let on, potentially putting “all federal legislation,” which includes Social Security and Medicare, on a 5-year chopping block.
Fox hosts and guests have largely neglected to share these proposals with their viewers. Instead, they have presented a dishonest narrative that the GOP is not actually working to undermine entitlement programs, claiming Democrats are using the story as a “desperate” attack ahead of the midterm elections.