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Friday, September 1, 2017

Fooling Trump on Disability Insurance

At Politico, Michael Grunwald reports on a May conversation between Trump & OMB Director Mick Mulvaney:
“Look, this is my idea on how to reform Social Security,” the former South Carolina congressman began.

“No!” the president replied. “I told people we wouldn’t do that. What’s next?” 
“Well, here are some Medicare reforms,” Mulvaney said. 
“No!” Trump repeated. “I’m not doing that.” 
“OK, disability insurance.”

This was a clever twist. Mulvaney was talking about the Social Security Disability Insurance program, which, as its full name indicates, is part of Social Security. But Americans don’t tend to think of it as Social Security, and its 11 million beneficiaries are not the senior citizens who tend to support Trump.
“Tell me about that,” Trump replied. 
“It’s welfare,” Mulvaney said. 
“OK, we can fix welfare,” Trump declared.