President Trump opened the door to future cuts to Medicare and Social Security this week, promising to “take a look at” slashing North Carolinians’ earned retirement benefits “at the end of the year.”

Given Senator Tillis’ unfailing support of Trump’s agenda and his own voting record to jeopardize Medicare and Social Security, he owes North Carolinians answers on whether he’ll blindly rubberstamp yet another Trump proposal that harms working families in North Carolina.

Tillis has repeatedly voted for budgets that put Social Security and Medicare benefits on the chopping block. He voted to make it easier to privatize Social Security, opposed expanding those earned benefits, and voted against protecting those benefits for future generations. He has also voted twice to cut Medicare by more than $400 billion.

Tillis also voted for and championed the 2017 Republican tax scam, which despite false promises that it would pay for itself has instead sent the deficit skyrocketing. Now, the president – with Tillis’ silent support – is pushing to cut retirement benefits to pay for it.

“Senator Tillis has made crystal clear that he will blindly rubberstamp the president’s agenda for his own political expediency – even if it means disastrous cuts to retirement benefits that hardworking North Carolinians rely on,” NCDP spokesman Robert Howard said. “Tillis voted for a tax scam that slashed taxes for the ultra-wealthy and corporate CEOs and now is standing silently by as the president pushes to cut North Carolinians’ earned retirement benefits to pay for it. North Carolinians deserve to know whether Tillis will put their hard-earned benefits before his loyalty to the president.”

New York Times: Trump Opens Door to Cuts to Medicare and Other Entitlement Programs
By Alan Rappeport and Maggie Haberman
January 22, 2020

Key Points:

• President Trump suggested on Wednesday that he would be willing to consider cuts to social safety-net programs like Medicare to reduce the federal deficit if he wins a second term, an apparent shift from his 2016 campaign promise to protect funding for such entitlements.
• The president made the comments on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Despite promises to reduce the federal budget deficit, it has ballooned under Mr. Trump’s watch as a result of sweeping tax cuts and additional government spending.
• Asked in an interview with CNBC if cuts to entitlements would ever be on his plate, Mr. Trump answered yes.
• “At some point they will be,” Mr. Trump said, before pointing to United States economic growth. “At the right time, we will take a look at that.”
• Mr. Trump suggested that curbing spending on Medicare, the government health care program for the elderly, was a possibility.
• “We’re going to look,” [Trump] said.
• The interview left many questions unanswered, including whether Mr. Trump would consider touching Social Security or what part of Medicare he would be willing to shave.
• The president has already proposed cuts for some safety-net programs. His last budget proposal called for a total of $1.9 trillion in cost savings from mandatory safety-net programs, like Medicaid and Medicare. It also called for spending $26 billion less on Social Security programs, the federal retirement program, including a $10 billion cut to the Social Security Disability Insurance program, which provides benefits to disabled workers.
• Following the $1.5 trillion tax cut that Republicans passed in 2017, some suggested that they would quickly turn to reduce the cost of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.