Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blamed rising federaldeficits and debt on a bipartisan unwillingness to contain spendingon Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, and said he sees littlechance of a major deficit reduction deal while Republicans controlCongress and the White House.

“It's disappointing, but it's not a Republican problem,”McConnell said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg News when asked aboutthe rising deficits and debt. “It's a bipartisan problem:unwillingness to address the real drivers of the debt by doinganything to adjust those programs to the demographics of America inthe future.”

McConnell's remarks came a day after the Treasury Departmentsaid the U.S. budget deficit grew to $779 billion in Donald Trump'sfirst full fiscal year as president, as a result of the GOP's taxcuts, bipartisan spending increases, and rising interest paymentson the national debt. That's a 77 percent increase from the $439billion deficit in fiscal 2015, when McConnell became majorityleader.

McConnell said it would be “very difficult to do entitlementreform, and we're talking about Medicare, Social Security, andMedicaid,” with one party in charge of Congress and the WhiteHouse.

“I think it's pretty safe to say that entitlement changes, whichis the real driver of the debt by any objective standard, may wellbe difficult if not impossible to achieve when you have unifiedgovernment,” McConnell said.

Shrinking those popular programs without a bipartisandeal—either by reducing benefits or raising the retirementage—would risk a political backlash in the next election. Trumppromised during his campaign that he wouldn't cut Social Security,Medicare, or Medicaid, even though his budget proposals haveincluded trims to all three programs.

McConnell said he had many conversations on the issue withformer President Barack Obama, a Democrat. “He was a very smartguy, understood exactly what the problem was, understood dividedgovernment was the time to do it, but didn't want to because it wasnot part of his agenda,” McConnell said.

“I think it would be safe to say that the single biggestdisappointment of my time in Congress has been our failure toaddress the entitlement issue, and it's a shame because now theDemocrats are promising 'Medicare for all,”' he said. “I mean, mygosh, we can't sustain the Medicare we have at the rate we'regoing, and that's the height of irresponsibility.”

McConnell said the last major deal to overhaul entitlementsoccurred in the Reagan administration, when a Social Securitypackage including an increase in the retirement age passed underdivided government.

He also said he was the GOP Senate whip in 2005 when RepublicanPresident George W. Bush attempted a Social Security overhaul andcouldn't find any Democratic supporters. “Their view was, 'You wantto fix Social Security, you've got the presidency, you've got theWhite House, you've got the Senate, you go right ahead,'” McConnellsaid. The effort collapsed.

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Other Drivers of the Deficit

The Office of Management and Budget has projected a deficit inthe coming year of $1.085 trillion, despite a healthy economy. Andthe Congressional Budget Office has forecast a return totrillion-dollar deficits by fiscal 2020.

During Trump's presidency, Democrats and Republicans agreed to asweeping deal to increase discretionary spending on defense anddomestic programs, while his efforts to shrink spending onObamacare mostly fell flat.

In December 2017, Republicans also passed a tax cut projected toadd more than $1 trillion to the debt over a decade after leadersgave up on creating a plan that wouldn't increase the debt underthe Senate's scoring rules. At the time, McConnell told reporters,“I not only don't think it will increase the deficit, I think itwill be beyond revenue-neutral.” He added, “In other words, I thinkit will produce more than enough to fill that gap.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York respondedTuesday by saying McConnell and other Republicans “blew a $2trillion hole in the federal deficit to fund a tax cut for therich. To now suggest cutting earned middle-class programs likeMedicare, Social Security, and Medicaid as the only fiscallyresponsible solution to solve the debt problem is nothing short ofgas-lighting.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said in astatement, “Under the GOP's twisted agenda, we can afford tax cutsfor billionaires but not the benefits our seniors have earned.”

From: Bloomberg

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