House GOP budget plan delays retirement age

A group of more than 170 U.S. House Republicans released a new budget proposal that would raise the Social Security retirement age, restructure Medicare, ban abortion and threaten fertility treatments.

The budget plan was released last week by the Republican Study Committee, whose members comprise more than three-quarters of the House Republican caucus, many of whom are allies of former President Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee for president.

Iowa U.S. Reps. Randy Feenstra, Ashley Hinson and Zachary Nunn are members of that committee.

The proposal came two days before House Republicans voted and passed a separate, $1.2 trillion government funding package on Friday that was approved by the Senate and signed by President Joe Biden over the weekend to avert a government shutdown.

Hinson, Nunn and Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks voted to approve that bill, while Feenstra voted against it.

Retirement age increase in proposal

On Social Security, the RSC budget plan proposes "modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy," but does not specify what that retirement age would be.

Advocates of raising the Social Security retirement age in the past have proposed raising it from 67 to 69.

The plan also calls for "modest and delayed changes" to the Primary Insurance Amount benefit formula. It would also limit and "phase out" auxiliary benefits for high-income earners, but does not specify what that threshold would be, and gradually move toward "a flat benefit."

House Republicans emphasized those ideas would not take effect immediately: "The RSC Budget does not cut or delay retirement benefits for any senior in or near retirement."

Hinson, speaking to reporters Friday, said she does not support cuts of any kind to Social Security or raising the retirement age.

"I will always support Social Security, and I will reject any cuts to Social Security," Hinson said. "I will also reject the Democrats fearmongering on this issue," asserting trillions of dollars in spending approved by Democrats has fueled inflation that is hurting seniors and those on fixed incomes the most right now.

Given the nation's rising debt and with insolvency approaching, House Republicans said Congress "has a moral and practical obligation to address the problems" with federal entitlement programs.

"These common-sense, incremental reforms will simply buy Congress time to come together and negotiate policies that can secure Social Security solvency for decades to come," according to the budget plan.

Medicare is projected to become insolvent in 2028, and Social Security will follow in 2033. Without action, benefits would be forcibly cut 23% across the board unless more revenues are added, according to the Social Security Trustees' most recent report.

"Unlike the Biden budget, which does nothing to prevent these cuts, the RSC Budget would phase in common-sense, bipartisan reforms that have been narrowly tailored to affect no senior in or near retirement," according to the RSC.

What else is in the proposal?

The new budget also calls for converting Medicare to a "premium support model," a proposal pushed by the Republican former House Speaker Paul Ryan while he was in power.

Under the RSC proposal, seniors would receive subsidies they could use on private plans that would compete against traditional Medicare benefits.

The size of the subsidies could be pegged to the "average premium" or "second lowest price" in a particular market, according to the RSC proposal.

There is broad agreement the programs cannot continue as they are without raising taxes, reducing spending on benefits or transferring money from the general fund to cover the projected shortfall.

The RSC budget proposal rejects the first two options.

"Raising taxes on people will further punish them and burden the broader economy — something that the spend and print regime has proven to be disastrous and regressive," the budget says, adding that the committee also opposes "a multi-trillion-dollar general fund transfer that worsens our fiscal situation."

More than 600,000 Iowans rely on Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Biden has repeatedly vowed to protect the programs from cuts, instead proposing in his recent White House budget to cover the future shortfall by raising taxes on upper earners.

The RSC budget also proposes making Trump's 2017 tax cuts for individuals permanent.

It calls for the elimination of the Community Eligibility Provision from the National School Lunch Program, which helps ensure that millions of children have access to food throughout their school day, and proposes to cut total federal Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance Program and Affordable Care Act marketplace subsidy spending by more than half over the next decade.

"Facing such drastic reductions in federal Medicaid funding, states will have no choice but to institute truly draconian cuts to eligibility, benefits and provider reimbursement rates," said Edwin Park, a research professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy's Center for Children and Families.

"That would likely drive tens of millions into the ranks of the uninsured and severely reduce access to health care and long-term services and supports needed by low-income children, families, seniors, people with disabilities and other adults," Park wrote of the RSC budget plan.

Proposed bill could threaten IVF

Apart from fiscal policy, the RSC budget plan also endorses a series of bills "designed to advance the cause of life," including a national abortion ban and the Life at Conception Act, which would establish legal protections for human beings at "the moment of fertilization."

The Life at Conception Act endorsed by the Republican Study Committee has become a flashpoint in the wake of Alabama halting in vitro fertilization last month. The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children under state law and destroying them can create liability for wrongful death.

Alabama state lawmakers have since passed a law protecting IVF patients and providers from criminal liability, but did not address the underlying issue of whether embryos were considered people.

Biden calls budget plan 'extreme'

Although the proposals laid out in the budget released Wednesday are unlikely to become law this year, they serve as a preview for how Republicans will seek to govern should they be successful in the 2024 election.

Biden called the RSC's budget plan "extreme" in a statement issued Thursday.

"My budget represents a different future," the president said. "A future where we restore the right to choose and protect other freedoms, not take them away. A future where the middle class finally has a fair shot, and we protect Social Security so the working people who built this country can retire with dignity."

Republicans contend Biden's proposed budget deserves equal, if not more, scrutiny, noting it would ad $4.9 trillion in new taxes and nearly $1.7 trillion in higher spending.