The latest Republican budget is a revival of Paul Ryan-ism. The GOP will have to do better.
The RSC budget is an intellectually coherent vision for a smaller, limited federal government. But that vision no longer unites today’s GOP coalition, as the January EPPC-YouGov poll I drafted plainly shows. Sixty-three percent of Trump voters, for example, want to keep Social Security benefits the same for future retirees as they are for current recipients, even if payroll taxes must increase. Forty-five percent of Trump voters would rather ensure every senior citizen gets the health care they need regardless of the cost of Medicare to society; that number rises to 58 percent among voters who backed President Barack Obama in 2012 and President Donald Trump in 2020. A 2017 study found that nearly half of “American Preservationists,” a core demographic among 2016 Trump supporters, would be threatened by the budget’s proposed cuts to Medicaid and the Obamacare exchanges. Of this demographic’s members who are younger than 65, 44 percent received their health insurance from government. That’s up to seven times more than similar members in other Trump-backing demographics.
