Trump Focuses On Hunter Biden Biden Campaign Says ‘be Our Guest’
Heidi Przybyla, Monica Alba, Jonathan Allen and Shannon Pettypiece
Trump plans to focus attention on Bidens son Hunter and his business activities overseas.
As part of that strategy, Trumps guest list includes Tony Bobulinski, the former Hunter Biden business partner who told the New York Post that Joe Biden was in line to take a cut of a Chinese business deal negotiated by his son in early 2017.
Bidens aides told NBC News theyre not worried about the topic.
“Be our guest,” Biden deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield told NBC News ahead of the debate in Nashville. “Hes been trying to land this for 18 months. It got him impeached. It hasnt worked.”
Bedingfield also said she would not “dignify” the question of whether material allegedly retrieved from Hunter Bidens laptop with the help of indicted former Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is real.
NBC has reported the FBI is looking into how the material was acquired.
Social Security Seemed Like A Future Problem The Virus Changed That
Even before the pandemic, Social Securitys finances were under growing pressure. The next president and Congress will play a crucial role in what happens next.
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Social Security has always seemed like a future problem, with experts long predicting a benefits squeeze in the decades ahead. But the coronavirus has put tens of millions of Americans out of work, and economists are predicting that the recovery will take years.
That means the future is now.
If nothing is done to shore up the program, all benefit checks will need to be cut by roughly one-quarter in perhaps 11 years or, if the recession is protracted and severe, maybe even sooner.
We thought we had more than a decade, and now it could be less than a decade, said Kathleen Romig, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. That makes a big difference both psychologically and in policy terms.
The pandemic has hastened the cash crunchs arrival by wiping out jobs and the payroll taxes Social Securitys dedicated source of revenue that they provide. Fewer people are paying into the retirement trust fund, and the longer theyre out of work, the deeper the problem becomes.
President Trump will always protect Social Security, as he has stated numerous times, she said.
Trump White House Claim The Tax Relief Will Not Impact Social Security
On Sunday, as he boarded Marine One, Trump told reporters that the executive order deferring payroll taxes for some Americans will “have zero impact on Social Security.”
“We protect Social Security,” he added, according to Fox News.
An official from the White House told USA TODAY on Tuesday that the Social Security Trust Fund is not at risk, since payment deferral is only temporary, and at present, must be paid back early in 2021. The official confirmed, though, that the president called on Congress to make the deferral permanent, thereby eliminating the tax.
Garrett Watson, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, an independent tax policy think tank, told USA TODAY that eliminating the tax is not the same as eliminating Social Security.
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“Strictly speaking, Social Security could be funded using general fund revenue or alternative revenue source, so terminating a tax and terminating a program are distinct things,” he wrote in an email.
“However, it would be reasonable to ask what would happen with the program absent an alternative plan to fund it,” Watson added.
On Wednesday, Trump suggested an alternate source for the first time the general fund of government revenues per Fox Business.
More:The top 3 unanswered questions about Trump’s executive orders on coronavirus relief
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Rncs Third Night Goes All In On Law And Order Message As Protests Against Police Killings Continue
Two things can be true at the same time. One, this presidential election is so consequential, as Democrats and Republicans continue to remind us. And two, the actual campaigns whether its the conventions or the limited campaign activity seem so small compared with everything else.
WASHINGTON Driving President Donald Trump’s “law and order” message, Vice President Mike Pence praised law enforcement on the third night of the Republican convention Wednesday against the backdrop of protests sparked by a police officer shooting a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
“Law and order are on the ballot,” Pence continued. “The choice in this election is whether America remains America.
The Claim: President Donald Trump Promised To ‘terminate’ Social Security If He Is Reelected
Recent posts from Social Security Works a nonprofit focused on expanding Social Security, improving Medicare and lowering the cost of prescription drugs claim that President Donald Trump will end Social Security if he is reelected.
“Donald Trump says he will ‘terminate’ Social Security if reelected,” a post on Monday reads. “A vote for Trump is a vote to destroy our social security system.”
“Millions of seniors and people with disabilities struggle to make ends meet,” another post from the same day reads. “Yet Donald Trump says he will ‘terminate’ Social Security if reelected. That’s a disastrous plan.”
The posts come after Trump signed a series of executive orders on Aug. 8 intended to provide relief from the detrimental economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
More:Trump again threatens executive orders to extend benefits after stimulus talks fall apart
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Democrats Urged To Reject Latest Gop Attempt To Hold Social Security Hostage
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham on Wednesday said he would be willing to vote to raise the federal debt ceiling in exchange for a policy that could result in cuts to Social Security and Medicare, a proposed trade-off that progressive advocacy groups implored Democrats to reject.
Fortunately, Democrats can protect Social Security and Medicare by raising the debt ceiling in the forthcoming reconciliation package.Alex Lawson, Social Security Works
With members of Congress staring down an to increase the debt limitthe amount of money the federal government is legally permitted to borrow to meet its financial obligationsGraham toldBloomberg that he could bring himself to vote yes on a debt ceiling hike if Democrats agree to legislation establishing commissions tasked with crafting Social Security and Medicare reforms.
But Social Security Works, a progressive advocacy organization, was quick to warn that Grahams offer is a thinly veiled trap.
Lindsey Graham and his fellow Republicans will stop at nothing to cut the American peoples earned Social Security and Medicare benefits, Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, said in a statement. Graham has now telegraphed his partys intention to demand a commission to cut Social Security and Medicare as the price for raising the debt ceiling.
Social Security Works and other groups warned at the time that the proposal was nothing more than a plot to gut Social Security behind closed doors.
Pelosi: Biden Shouldn’t Debate Trump ‘legitimize A Conversation With Him’
WASHINGTON House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday that she doesnt think Joe Biden should debate President Donald Trump in the three scheduled this fall ahead of the election because she said Trump will probably act in a way that is beneath the dignity of the presidency.
Pelosi volunteered her opinion at a weekly news conference at the Capitol during which she also said that if Biden wins the White House and Democrats retain control of the House, they will have the ability to expose Trumps tax returns that he has refused for years to release.
Don’t tell anybody who told you this especially don’t tell Joe Biden I don’t think that there should be any debates, she said. I do not think that the president of the United States has comported himself in a way that anybody has any association with truth, evidence, data and facts. I wouldn’t legitimize a conversation with him, nor a debate in terms of the presidency of the United States.
Rebecca Shabad and Mike Memoli
WASHINGTON Several hundred former aides to President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain announced Thursday that they are endorsing Joe Biden for president.
The statements of support for the Democratic nominee come as President Donald Trump prepares to accept his party’s nomination on the final night of the Republican National Convention.
Meanwhile, more than 100 former staff of McCain’s congressional offices and campaigns also endorsed Biden for president.
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Progressive Group Wrong Trump Didnt Cut Social Security Benefits By $3 Billion
If Your Time is short
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Trump proposed policies that would have cut aspects of the program, but none were adopted.
As part of a push to raise Social Security benefits, a group that works to elect progressives made a false attack on former President Donald Trump.
“Trump cut Social Security benefits by over $3 BILLION,” was the first line of a Facebook post by the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC.
The Nov. 10 post, still widely shared in late December, linked to an online petition calling for raising Social Security benefits by $200 per month.
The post was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed.
Trump did not make any such cut to Social Security benefits.
Featured Fact-check
The Press And The Public Fundamentally Misunderstand Social Security And They Always Have
The problem begins with already-dangerous levels of public ignorance and political opportunism regarding Social Security. Reporters and pundits truly do not understand much if anything about the system, so when they hear people say that the systems Trust Fund might be depleted at some point in the future, a Chicken Little response quickly follows.
Indeed, for many years, I knew that I would have to write columns here on Verdict or elsewhere as soon as the trustees of the Social Security system issued their annual reports. The news cycle would quickly be dominated by stories about the system going bankrupt, belly up, or running out of money. I would then feel honor-bound to publish a column pointing out that this is nonsense, even though I had written pretty much the same column the previous year .
As I noted in 2018, however, I had at that point gone almost two years without writing about Social Security here on Verdict. It was hardly a coincidence that the Republicans retirement fearmongering had stopped at the end of 2016. Trump, after all, had promised his older, White base of voters that he would leave Social Security alone and because the system was fundamentally sound, there was no need for anyone to make a big deal about it. And with Trumps relentless noise machine running full blast on other issues, everyone finally seemed willing to leave Social Security alone.
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Trumps Plan To Defund Social Security
Permanently terminating the employee payroll tax along the lines President Trump has proposed would empty Social Securitys trust fund by 2026 or earlier.
On August 8, at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, President Donald Trump announced that his administration is seeking to delay much of the payroll tax that funds Social Security1 of 4 unilateral actions he took in lieu of negotiating with Congress on meaningful economic relief legislation. The president also said that if he is reelected, he wants not only to turn the delay into a tax cut that would result in significant revenue losses for Social Security, but also to eliminate employee payroll taxes for good. As our analysis based on the Social Security trustees projections shows, eliminating employee payroll taxes along the lines that the president has proposed would, absent additional action, completely exhaust the Social Security trust fund by 2026 or earlier and result in steep benefit cuts.
65 million
people receive Social Security.
This would drain about $350$450 billion in payroll tax revenue in 2021 and more in later years.
59
The percentage of promised benefits recipients would receive in Social Security if the trust fund is exhausted
Based on the latest Social Security trustees projections, we estimate:
Seth Hanlon and Christian E. Weller are senior fellows at the Center for American Progress.
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Trump Has Prepped For Tonight’s Debate Even Less Than Last One
Monica Alba
President Trump has done even less traditional debate prep for the second and final contest tonight in Nashville than he did for the first face-off, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions.
Trump has been counseled by aides and allies to not interrupt as much, though its unclear how much he will follow that advice. The president indicated he is not pleased with the new microphone-muting adjustment and says he will plan to speak up when he feels its appropriate.
The president has also been told by advisers to let former Vice President Joe Biden speak more than he did on the stage in Cleveland, in their view, to allow the Democratic nominee to potentially stumble or make a mistake.
Expect Trump to raise Hunter Biden and China throughout the debate. The president has suggested as much in recent days.
The team that helped prepare the president last time did not reassemble this time around, partially because several of them were still recovering from coronavirus. As a reminder, the following people got sick around the time the president and first lady did: senior aide Hope Hicks, senior aide Stephen Miller, outside adviser Kellyanne Conway, former Gov. Chris Christie and campaign manager Bill Stepien.
Trump, for his part, told reporters he considers his exchanges with them prep, in addition to the 13 rallies hes done since his return to the trial last week after his hospitalization for Covid-19.
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Do Republicans Misunderstand Social Security Or Just Feign Ignorance
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As a follow-up to our Tuesday post on the House GOPs assault on Social Security and its beneficiaries, its proper to take a closer look at the rationale for the attack.
To recap, the GOP caucus passed a rule making it much harder, if not impossible, to reallocate Social Security payroll tax revenue from the programs retirement fund to its disability fund. The latter is in imminent trouble, expected to run out of reserves next year. At that point, disability benefits will have to be slashed about 20%.
Reallocation is a crucial near-term fix, and something thats been done nearly a dozen times since the 1980s to keep both the disability and old-age funds solvent. The new GOP rule allows any member to block it.
Kathy Ruffing of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points us to this explanation from the provisions sponsor, Rep. Tom Reed of New York. His intention, he says, is to force us to look for a long term solution for SSDI rather than raiding Social Security to bail out a failing federal program. Retired taxpayers who have paid into the system for years deserve no less.
Ruffing calls this a revealing statement. So it is, in the sense that a big red F on a school paper reveals a pupils profound lack of understanding.
The balls in your court, Rep. Reed. Lets see your next move.
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