Mike Johnson Just Made a Grave Political Error
Social Security is popular. Cutting it is not.
I scream social
Mike Johnson did something very out of character Monday. Normally coy in public, the speaker of the House openly admitted to a radio interviewer that if Republicans retain their majority heading into next year, they are planning to flatten their palms against the hottest stove in politics—and he broadcast this just months before an election in which many forecasters are already projecting a Democratic wave.
“The reason we’re in trouble is because over seventy-four percent of federal spending is on autopilot—mandatory spending, that is your entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and things like Social Security—they have to be adjusted and fixed,” Johnson said on a radio show. “We have a plan to do that next year, and it’s critical, because we’re at $40 trillion-plus in debt. At some point, you get into a hole so deep you can’t climb out of it, so desperate times call for desperate measures.”
Johnson later called the circulation and discussion of his comments “fearmongering” and said, “Everyone knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is rampant waste, fraud, and abuse throughout government programs.”
Johnson continued to leave it unclear exactly what he’d do about that waste, fraud, and abuse, which, frankly, is not as prevalent as he and other Republicans often insist. But any proposed reform would almost certainly involve further restricting eligibility for those programs to exclude more of their current beneficiaries—along the lines of what Republicans did with Medicaid last year.
The bigger picture takeaway though is that this was dumb. There are a few general rules for survival in politics. Chief among them is to never, ever fuck with Social Security. Suggesting that the widely popular, essential program could be on the chopping block if your party holds the majority is a kind of political malpractice almost unthinkable for how stupid and self-damaging it is.1 Johnson obviously knows this. He serves under President Donald Trump, who has made it very clear he is never going to touch Social Security, even if he also said the same once about Medicaid. Johnson was also in Congress in 2022 when Sen. Rick Scott proposed an 11-point plan sunsetting all federal programs (Social Security included) after five years. It was a big deal in those midterms!
Why in the world would Johnson make that same mistake?
I wanted to know what Johnson’s colleagues and Senate counterparts made of his admission. So I went looking for them.