President Trump’s Executive Orders and their affects on Medicare and Social Security

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US President Donald Trump’s new executive orders faced swift backlash from Democrats. Some Republican legislators said the president was attempting to unconstitutionally bypass US Congress after coronavirus relief negotiations evaded on the Capitol Hill. Some critics decried the president latest measures after the US Senate hit an impasse on the negotiations for a new coronavirus relief package. The executive orders would cut back additional unemployment benefits the government provided during the pandemic to $400 a week and provide a payroll tax holiday for Americans who earn less than $100,000 annually. President Trump said he would forgive those taxes for millions of Americans if he was reelected in November.

The US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in an interview with ABC News that the president’s payroll tax holiday essentially depletes money out of the social security and Medicare trust funds. He pointed out how both programs are funded by taxpayer dollars. Schumer said, “If you’re a social security recipient or Medicare recipient, you better watch out if President Trump is re-elected”. The orders were mentioned as unconstitutional slop in a statement sent to a news outlet from Republican Ben Sasse. The statement said, “The pen-and-phone theory of executive lawmaking is unconstitutional slop. President Obama did not have the power to unilaterally rewrite immigration law with DACA, and President Trump does not have the power to unilaterally rewrite the payroll tax law”.

The statement added, “Under the Constitution, that power belongs to the American people acting through their members of Congress”. The US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi later echoed the Republican senator and called the orders as unconstitutional slop in an interview with Fox News Sunday. She said, “While he says he’s going to do the payroll tax, what he’s doing is undermining Social Security and Medicare, so these are illusions”. She called the orders absurdly unconstitutional. Republican leadership has rejected to hold a vote on the Democrats’ HEROES Act (a $3 trillion stimulus package). Democrat Val Demings is a leading choice to serve as the Democratic Party’s nominee for vice president. He tweeted and said, “The American people desperately need relief. Instead, the president decided to defund Social Security and Medicare”.