Marco Rubio reveals GOP plan: Gut Social Security and Medicare to pay for tax cuts

Still searching for votes to pass a once-in-a-generation tax scam along entirely partisan party lines, some Republicans are belatedly conceding that the legislation does far more and far worse than reward millionaires, donors, and corporations.

It also sets America on a path toward massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare — in order to pay for the lopsided giveaways to the wealthiest among us.

On Thursday, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told an audience that if and when the massive tax cuts for the rich produce a ballooning deficit, the next step would be to start dismantling Medicare and Social Security as we know it.

Basically, America’s safety net will need to be sacrificed — which has been a policy goal of the Republican Party for more than half a century.

“Many argue that you can’t cut taxes because it will drive up the deficit. But we have to do two things. We have to generate economic growth which generates revenue, while reducing spending,” said Rubio. “That will mean instituting structural changes to Social Security and Medicare for the future.”

The aim may not be new, but the public confession is.

“The only thing that’s new here is the explicit admission by a Republican officeholder that this is the GOP’s master plan to eviscerate the welfare and retirement of American workers,” notes Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hilzik. “His prescription involves two options — generating economic growth and cutting spending. Actually, there are three options — raising taxes is the third.”

The pending bill is already projected to cut Medicare by approximately $400 billion over the next decade. What Rubio is suggesting is even further dismantling of Medicare, as well as Social Security.

Politically, it would be extremely difficult for Republicans to propose and pass stand-alone legislation that called for such draconian cuts to such popular programs. Thus, they are instead doing it under the guise of their tax scam, and attempting to jam it through Congress without public debate.

It’s also why Republicans have loaded down the legislation with an abundance of radical wish-list items that have nothing to do with taxation, such as making college less affordable, allowing churches to endorse political candidates, green-lighting oil drilling on protected lands, and allowing fetuses to be named as beneficiaries for tax-free investments.

It’s essentially a Trojan horse power grab, concocted and carried out under the blanket of secrecy. But now that Rubio has admitted to it publicly, the GOP can’t hide the truth any longer.