“A great number of entitlement programs, mandatory programs, are not Social Security and Medicare,” Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican budget negotiator, said Oct. 30.
Stay Alert
David Certner, director of legislative policy for AARP, said seniors’ groups can’t let down their guard.
“It seems pretty clear that Medicare and Social Security, if not on the table, are always on a side table,” he said.
Proponents of reducing entitlement spending say AARP and its allies are winning.
“The opponents on the other side have had a bigger voice,” R. Bruce Josten, the top lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in June.
A bipartisan commission led by former Senator Alan Simpson, a Wyoming Republican, and Erskine Bowles, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, in December 2010 recommended a 3-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases. Their report predicted an onslaught of special-interest lobbying to obliterate the plan.
“And that’s exactly what has happened,” Simpson said in an interview. “It’s a blood-lust. The lobbyists are going right to the congresspeople and saying if you mess with this or that, we’ll light a torch during your next election.”
Midterm Elections
Those threats are most compelling in midterm elections, such as the 2014 races when House and Senate candidates will face an electorate in which seniors have more influence. Voters ages 65 and older comprised 21 percent of the electorate in 2010, compared with 16 percent in the 2012 presidential race, according to exit-polling data.