Republican Study Committee Proposes Raising Social Security Retirement Age To 69, Slashing Medicare

The Republican Study Committee released a budget proposal that calls for raising the Social Security retirement age to 69 years old and slashing funding for Medicare.

The RSC is chaired by Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Oklahoma), and its members consist of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and three top leadership deputies. Johnson chaired this group from 2019 to 2021. 

The proposals, unlikely to become law this year because of opposition from Democrats who control the Senate and White House, indicate how many Republicans will hope to govern if they win the 2024 elections. 

They also play into an argument that President Joe Biden wants to use against Donald Trump and Republicans while running for reelection.

The budget was released by the RSC, a group of over 170 House GOP lawmakers, including many of Trump’s allies. The RSC proposal noted that Biden supported raising the age to 65 to 67, the current retirement age while he was a senator in the 1980s. Biden no longer supports raising the retirement age.

It said action on Social Security was again required due to projections that the program would be bankrupt within ten years under the status quo.

Aside from fiscal policy, the budget endorses a series of bills “designed to advance the cause of life,” such as the Life at Conception Act. This would firmly restrict abortion and possibly threaten during vitro fertilization, or IVF, by establishing legal protections for humans at “the moment of fertilization.”

In the interview with CBS News, Johnson claimed that IVF policy should be the state’s responsibility, not the responsibility of Congress.

As for Social Security, this budget proposal endorses “modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy.”  It calls for decreasing benefits for the highest-earning beneficiaries.

The proposal stated, “The RSC Budget does not cut or delay retirement benefits for any senior in or near retirement.”

Under the new RSC plan, traditional Medicare would compete with private plans, and beneficiaries would be granted subsidies to find the policies of their choice. 

According to the budget, the subsidies’ sizes could be fixed to the “average premium” or “second lowest price” in a particular market.

Medicare is projected to become bankrupt in 2028, and Social Security will follow in 2033. After that, benefits will be forcibly cut unless more revenues are added.

Biden has blasted Republican proposals for retirement programs, promising that he will not cut benefits and instead proposing in his recent White House budget to deal with future shortfalls by raising taxes on upper earners.

The RSC budget presents three potential options to address the retirement programs’ projected bankruptcy: raising taxes, transferring money from the general fund or decreasing spending to cover the shortfall.

It dismissed the first two options. The budget declares, “Raising taxes on people will further punish them and burden the broader economy–something that the spend and print regime has proven disastrous and regressive.”

Biden proposed raising payroll taxes on Americans earning over $400,000, fully funding the program. 

Raising the Social Security retirement age has long been a pet cause of conservatives. 

Last month, conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro received backlash on social media for calling retirement “a stupid idea.”

Shapiro claimed that no one in America should retire “at 65 years old.”

Critics accused him of being unaware of working-class Americans’ struggles.