The dispute on entitlements between President-elect Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan could cause some major friction among Congress and the Trump administration, Politico reported.
Ryan wants to reform Medicaid, Social Security and Medicare because the entitlements are too expensive and, because, spending has been rising dramatically, adding to the national debt. Ryan has also been pushing to privatize Medicare for years – something he is not backing away from despite Trump's opposition.
"More than half of the money going to Medicare right now is the money we borrow; Medicare goes bankrupt in the next decade," he said during a town hall last Thursday. "But if we want this program to succeed, we have to save it from the insolvency, the bankruptcy that's coming."
Tom Cole told Politico there was no way to balance the budget without entitlement reform.
"It's just simply mathematically impossible, and I think the most important thing for us is not to lose sight of that under pressure," Cole said. "We should write a budget that includes genuine entitlement reform."
Ryan has a tough task ahead, Rep. Chris Collins told Politico.
"We have a Republican administration with their own opinion, and we don't want to get crosswise with them, and Donald Trump is still the head of the Republican party. But we still have our Freedom Caucus," he said, referring to the group of fiscal hardliners.
Collins added, seemingly in jest: "Who in the world would want to be speaker?"
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