U.S. President Donald Trump’s first budget is “not touching” Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday.
In an interview on Fox News, Mnuchin said the administration is “not touching those now” despite hopes in the Republican Congress to make radical changes.
“So don’t expect to see that as part of this budget, OK? We are very focused on other aspects and that’s what’s very important to us. And that’s the president’s priority,” Mnuchin said.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., however, has endorsed a plan that would eliminate the guaranteed level of care Medicare now provides, replacing it with vouchers to make seniors find their own coverage and that likely would wind up costing them thousands of dollars, AARP President Eric Schneiderwind has warned.
Republicans for years also have been talking about privatizing Social Security.
Trump goes before Congress Tuesday for his first address to a joint session since assuming office Jan. 20.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told ABC’s “This Week” Trump has “nothing” to show for his 40 days in office.
“I call him the deflector-in-chief. He has no jobs bill, so he has got to talk about the press. He has no jobs bill, so he has to talk about kids, transgender kids in school. He has no jobs bill, so he has to talk about immigrants and have a ban on Muslims coming to country,” Pelosi said.
“So when [Trump] makes his address on the 40 days that he has been president, he has nothing to show for it but fear in every way. To people who are sick, fear, to people who are immigrants, fear, to people who are concerned about the greed on Wall Street taking us back to where we were.”
Trump has pushed through a series of executive orders since taking office, from trying to cut off immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries to requiring regulations in various federal agencies to be cut to reversing President Barack Obama’s decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. The Departments of Education and Justice this week also rescinded guidelines that would have let transgender students use bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity rather than their chromosomes.
Trump has yet to submit any legislation to Congress, including his plan for rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure or an administration-developed healthcare proposal.
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