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December 20, 2017 04:20 PM UTC

Mike Coffman: Damn Right We're Gonna Cut Social Security

  • 17 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Aurora)

One of the loudest complaints over the GOP tax bill from opponents didn’t directly concern the provisions in the bill itself, but what the resulting massive losses in revenue from the tax cuts would mean down the road for essential programs like Social Security and Medicare–intentionally left untouched by Republicans this year as universally-acknowledged political third rails, but always lurking in the background as the inevitable next horizon of the GOP’s agenda despite the political risks.

Well, as the Denver Post’s Mark Matthews reports, just in time for the 2018 midterms Republicans will be grabbing the third rail and holding on for the ride!

Coffman said previously that he wanted Congress to deal with the Affordable Care Act in separate legislation — and not the tax bill. But he said Tuesday that he was persuaded to support this path because the bill wouldn’t repeal the Obamacare fine until 2019, which gives lawmakers a year to come up with a fix.

“It gives us time to work on a bipartisan replacement for that particular provision,” Coffman said…

To help deal with the projected deficit caused by the bill, Trump and Republican lawmakers said they plan next year to tackle what they’re calling welfare reform or entitlement reform – or changes to programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

“I think there will be welfare reform irrespective of what happens to the economy,” Coffman said. [Pols emphasis]

It’s impossible to overstate the importance of what Rep. Mike Coffman is saying here. It’s the other shoe everyone with even conversational literacy on the issues knew was going to drop after slashing taxes, which is the biggest reason why the public has overwhelmingly and consistently panned the tax cut bill in polling. There is not now and has not been at any point in modern American history any authentic popular support for cutting Social Security and Medicare. Every attempt to do so, most recently the failed 2005 Social Security privatization campaign from President George W. Bush, has been politically destructive to Republicans in the following elections.

For Coffman in particular, this immediately calls to mind his “Old Coffman” pre-redistricting position that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme.” After all the effort Coffman put in this year trying to create daylight between himself and the Affordable Care Act repeal, his vote for the wildly unpopular tax cut bill followed by this eager embrace of cutting Social Security and Medicare substantively undoes any goodwill he might have earned with constituents who depend on any of these programs.

And with that, Coffman’s Trump triangulation is revealed to be illusory when it matters most. The voters in Coffman’s district, which Hillary Clinton carried by 9 points last year, are not going to like it.

And they’ll get to express their displeasure at the polls with all of this fresh in their minds.

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17 thoughts on “Mike Coffman: Damn Right We’re Gonna Cut Social Security”

  1. Yesterday, on Coffman's congressional fb page where he declared his support for the Tax scam bill, one person who was marked as a constituent wrote "I voted for you. I voted for Gardner too.  Never again after this horrible bill."

      1. No…we need a progressive Democrat. Since it seems unlikely that Senator Bennet is ever going to become such a creature, it would be great to see a challenger step forward. One that will stand up for Gilligan…not Thurston and Lovey.

        The Republicans are practicing class warfare. The good senator needs to pick a side in the greatest class struggle this country has seen since the sixties. You cannot serve the common man and be a lackey for Big Money. I give the Senator a C- overall…and since I voted for him, I am entitled to judge him.

        The Democratic Party can, and should, do better.

        1. Yes. 

          If one of  Bennet’s hagiographers has a good reason why the language hasn’t been changed or removed, or why Bennet hasn’t clarified, then he’s as liberal as an Eisenhower Republican to me.…sorta like BO was.

          And we still don’t have a good explanation for the Bennet/Udall sabotage plan (aka The Blue Dog Rebellion) that purposefully hindered Obama from early on in his presidency. 

        2. All well and good.  But why keep bringing Bennet up in threads about Coffman and Gardner.  Both have been pushing this piece of shit tax bill while most people say they hate it.  The want to gut Social Security and Medicare even while nobody wants it.

          Bennet, to his credit, has not minced words that he thinks that the tax bill is a piece of shit.  Colorado is a violent blue state.  I have had issues with Bennet on some votes.  But just ripping on him because he's mot a pure as the driven snow firebrand.  Get more Dems.  Then we can talk about better ones.

    1. Hypocrisy? Like the Bush/Cheney notion in 2005 of privatizing social security and get everyone into 401(K)s, just before the stock market tanked 30% in the Great Recession? 

    2. Dem definition of fixing:  make solvent and make sure future generations who pay into it will have access just like the ones that came before them.

      GOP definition of "fixing":  "privatize" and make sure poor and middle class don't have it.  Because "I got mine.  Fuck you".

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