Donald Trump, at the time president of the United States, listens to then-Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russ Vought deliver remarks prior to Trump signing executive orders on Oct. 9, 2019, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

WASHINGTON — Incoming White House budget director Russ Vought has spent much of his career learning the detailed, often convoluted mechanisms that make up the Office of Management and Budget.

The agency, little known outside Washington, D.C., is relatively small compared to the rest of the federal government, but it acts like a nucleus for the executive branch and holds significant power.

OMB is responsible for releasing the president’s budget request every year, but also manages much of the executive branch by overseeing departments’ performance, reviewing the vast majority of federal regulations and coordinating how the various agencies communicate with Congress. 

Vought was deputy director, acting director and then director at OMB during Trump’s first term.

Before that Vought worked as vice president of Heritage Action for America, policy director for the U.S. House Republican Conference, executive director of the Republican Study Committee and a legislative assistant for former Texas Republican Sen. Phil Gramm. He has an undergraduate degree from Wheaton College and a law degree from George Washington University Law School.

Following Trump’s first term in office, Vought founded the right-leaning Center for Renewing America. The group’s mission is “to renew a consensus of America as a nation under God with unique interests worthy of defending that flow from its people, institutions, and history, where individuals’ enjoyment of freedom is predicated on just laws and healthy communities.”

Cutting government spending

Vought outlined his agenda for the next four years in Project 2025, a 922-page document from the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation that led to speculation during the presidential campaign about what Trump would seek to do without Congress, including in areas that constitutionally fall within the legislative branch, like government spending.

The Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, repeatedly tried to tie Project 2025 to Trump and his campaign, and they sought to distance themselves from its proposals. But Trump has since nominated some of its authors or contributors to run federal departments and agencies.

Vought, in a 26-page chapter on the executive office of the president, wrote the OMB director “must ensure the appointment of a General Counsel who is respected yet creative and fearless in his or her ability to challenge legal precedents that serve to protect the status quo.”

Trump, Vought and many others are bullish about cutting government spending, but will likely run into legal challenges if they try to spend more or considerably less than lawmakers approve in the dozen annual government funding bills. 

Budget request

One of Vought’s most visible responsibilities will be releasing the president’s annual budget request, a sweeping document that lays out the commander-in-chief’s proposal for the federal government’s tax and spending policy.

The president’s budget, however, is just a request since Congress has the constitutional authority to establish tax and spending policy.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill write the dozen annual government funding bills that account for about one-third of annual federal spending. The rest of the federal government’s spending comes from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which are classified as mandatory programs and mostly run on autopilot unless Congress approves changes and the president signs off on a new law.

That separation of powers led to frustration during Trump’s first term in office and will likely do so again, since he spoke during the 2024 campaign about using “impoundment” to prevent the federal government from spending money Congress has approved.

Trump withheld security assistance funding from Ukraine during his first term in office, leading to one of his two impeachments and a ruling from the Government Accountability Office —a nonpartisan government watchdog — that he had violated the law.

“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” GAO wrote. “OMB withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA). The withholding was not a programmatic delay. Therefore, we conclude that OMB violated the ICA.”

Trump spoke on the campaign trail about using “impoundment” to drastically cut government spending, but that would likely lead to lawsuits and a Supreme Court ruling. 

Vought’s think tank, Center for Renewing America, published analysis of presidents using impoundment throughout the country’s history, with the authors concluding the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional.

‘Every possible tool’

Vought sought to defend the president’s budget request in his chapter in Project 2025, writing that though “some mistakenly regard it as a mere paper-pushing exercise, the President’s budget is in fact a powerful mechanism for setting and enforcing public policy at federal agencies.”

He signaled the second Trump administration would be more nuanced in its interpretation of presidential authority.

“The President should use every possible tool to propose and impose fiscal discipline on the federal government.” Vought wrote. “Anything short of that would constitute abject failure.”

Vought also wrote about the management aspect of OMB’s portfolio, pressing for political appointees to have more authority and influence than career staff.

“It is vital that the Director and his political staff, not the careerists, drive these offices in pursuit of the President’s actual priorities and not let them set their own agenda based on the wishes of the sprawling ‘good government’ management community in and outside of government,” Vought wrote. “Many Directors do not properly prioritize the management portfolio, leaving it to the Deputy for Management, but such neglect creates purposeless bureaucracy that impedes a President’s agenda—an ‘M Train to Nowhere.’”

Social Security advocates want any proposals to address a looming shortfall in the system to be developed in the open, not behind closed doors. (Getty Images)

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress enacted the Social Security system in the depths of the Great Depression, a universal retirement plan was supposed to be just the first step.

“People wanted health care in the program initially, but didn’t feel they could get it through Congress at the same time that he did retirement,” said James Roosevelt, grandson of FDR, during a panel discussion in Madison last week.

The panel discussion was organized by the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans as well as the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents Social Security Administration employees.

Roosevelt quoted his grandfather’s explanation of the program at the time of its enactment: “We can never ensure 100% of the population against 100% of the hazards and vicissitudes of life,” he recalled FDR saying. “But we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against a poverty-ridden old age.”

FDR envisioned Social Security as part of an economic bill of rights, said Nancy Altman, president of the research and advocacy group Social Security Works, including disability coverage and even universal health care. Those weren’t included from the start, Altman said, “because it was too important to not be successful, and it was the largest undertaking that any government had taken up to that point.”

Administrative funding lags

Today, Social Security faces two major challenges. One is that funding for its administration has not kept up with expenses.

Martin O’Malley, Social Security Administration commissioner and a participant in the panel discussion, said in an interview that the agency’s overhead costs amount to 1.2% of the benefits that Social Security pays out. Private insurers, he said, have overhead costs in the neighborhood of 20%.

Administrative overhead is supposed to come out of the payroll taxes that fund Social Security. “You and I paid for that already — we paid for it out of our benefits,” O’Malley said. “But in a strange anomaly of these more recent times, Congress has chosen to treat the administrative overhead budget as discretionary.”

One example of the impact: In the agency’s Madison field office alone, the staff has dropped by 40% over the last five years, from 28 in 2019 to 17 now, O’Malley said.

Even with that challenge, however, O’Malley said the Social Security Administration has improved its customer service nationwide in the last year. Callers to the 800 number for assistance with benefits now wait 11 minutes on hold on average, he said — down from more than 40 minutes.

Disability applications have been backlogged, but for the last 18 weeks, O’Malley said, the agency has succeeded in chipping away at it, completing more applications than new ones are filed.

Still, there remain 1.2 million people waiting to hear if their claims will be accepted. “It’s not right that people should have to fight so hard to get customer service,” O’Malley said.

The other challenge, long identified, is the looming shortfall in the funding for Social Security. The program is funded on a “pay as you go” basis — with the current generation of workers funding the benefits paid to the current generation of retirees.

With the large bulge of retirees currently, along with a smaller population of working-age people, Social Security’s revenue is expected to fall short of what is needed to fully fund benefits by 2033.

During the panel discussion, O’Malley described a conversation he’d had with an agency actuary. Forty years ago Congress was apprised of the coming bulge of Baby Boom retirees and enacted legislation that built up a surplus in anticipation of that surge in people drawing on the system, he said.

What wasn’t foreseen then, however, was a major spike in income inequality. The trend “took a lot of the earned income in the United States of America and concentrated it in the top 6% of the American public,” O’Malley said. The result was higher Social Security payouts for the highest earners, and a surplus that had been structured to last until 2057 is now forecast to last only until  2035.

Another challenge that the system has faced is misinformation.

One myth is that undocumented immigrants are draining the Social Security system.

“This is categorically, objectively false,” O’Malley said. Immigrants without legal status in the U.S. still have federal taxes withheld from their earnings, and therefore “actually pay into Social Security about $22 billion a year that they will never see a dime of coming back to them.”

Another myth is that Social Security won’t be there for younger workers. J. Michael Collins, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison La Follette School of Public Affairs and the leader of the UW Retirement and Disability Research Consortium, said he hears that often from his students at UW.

In the worst case scenario, however, the shortfall would cut benefits to 72 cents on the dollar, he said.

Advocates point to possible fixes

Such a drastic cut can be avoided, however, panelists said. One fix would be to lift the cap on how much income is taxed to fund the system. Currently that cap is just under $170,000 a year. Proposals in Congress have called for requiring people with higher incomes to pay the Social Security payroll tax on all of their earnings, extending the shortfall deadline several decades.

A related challenge, Altman said, is that the program has been subject to “not just misinformation, but disinformation.”  

In its earliest days, Social Security was opposed by wealthy interests as “socialism,” but as the program has become widely accepted and appreciated, the opposition has shifted to suggesting that “we can’t afford it,” she said.

Altman said the shortfall can be headed off without drastic cuts but that any changes need to be made “in the open, transparently, with votes that are clear.”

She is skeptical of the motives of any attempt to modify the program that isn’t conducted that way. Social Security’s opponents, she charged, want to “go behind closed doors, come up with something or have a fast-track process” that will require an up-or-down vote. “And then that is very dangerous, because that is the way they’ll be able to cut it.”

James Roosevelt said the program his grandfather launched shouldn’t be viewed simply as a benefit for the elderly. Its existence “means kids can go to college because their grandparents have earned benefits,” he said. And it enables adults to have a better life themselves while feeling secure that aged parents also have some continued support.

“Social Security is a family program,” he said.

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Does Eric Hovde support raising the Social Security retirement age for younger Americans? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

How to address projected shortfalls for both the Social Security and Medicare trust funds will become an increasingly important topic for the president and Congress during the next decade. (Photo by Getty Images)

This is one in a series of States Newsroom reports on the major policy issues in the presidential race.

WASHINGTON — The presidential debate in early September included just one mention of Social Security and three references to Medicare, making the safety net programs a minuscule part of the policy discussion, despite their importance to tens of millions of Americans.

Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump have both mentioned the programs numerous times during appearances, though neither campaign has sought to elevate the financial stability of the two programs as a core issue.

More often than not, Harris and Trump rebuke their opponent, while committing to “save” Social Security and Medicare — skipping over the details or the role Congress must play in the discussion.

How to address projected shortfalls for both the Social Security and Medicare trust funds will become an increasingly important topic for the president and Congress during the next decade.

The latest Social Security trustees report expects the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and the Disability Insurance trust funds will be able to pay full benefits until 2035, after which, without action by lawmakers, benefits would drop to about 83%.

The trustee report for Medicare shows the funding stream for the hospital insurance trust fund can cover all of its bills through 2036 before it would only be able to cover 89% of costs.

There are currently 67.5 million people enrolled in Medicare, which provides health insurance and prescription drug coverage for people over the age of 65 as well as younger people who have certain severe illnesses or disabilities.

Nearly 68 million people receive some level of benefit from Social Security each month, accounting for about $1.5 trillion in spending by the federal government annually, according to a fact sheet.

While the issue is somewhat less pressing for Trump, who would be term limited to another four years, Harris could theoretically spend the next eight years in the Oval Office, making the solvency of the trust funds an issue she would likely need to address with Congress.

Protecting seniors

During the September debate, Harris brought up Social Security and Medicare following a question about how her policy beliefs on fracking, assault weapons and border security have changed over time.

“My work that is about protecting Social Security and Medicare is based on long-standing work that I have done. Protecting seniors from scams,” Harris said as part of a longer answer. “My values have not changed. And what is important is that there is a president who actually brings values and a perspective that is about lifting people up and not beating people down and name-calling.”

Harris later brought up Medicare again, noting that legislation Congress approved during Biden’s term in office allowed program administrators to negotiate certain prescription drug prices for the first time. That law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, also capped the cost of insulin for Medicare enrollees at $35 per month.

Trump didn’t broach the subject of Social Security or Medicare during the September debate with Harris, but he did speak about the two programs during an earlier summer debate with President Joe Biden, before he stepped aside as the Democratic nominee.

During that debate, Trump claimed the Biden administration was going to “destroy” the two programs by allowing noncitizens to draw down benefits.

FactCheck notes on its website that comments and viral posts about noncitizens receiving Social Security benefits don’t always represent reality and sometimes confuse different programs.

“Immigrants who are lawfully living or authorized to work in the U.S. are eligible for a Social Security number and, in some cases, Social Security benefits. But viral posts make the false claim that ‘illegal immigrants’ can receive Social Security numbers and retirement benefits, and they confuse two programs managed by the Social Security Administration.”

KFF writes on its website that whether legal immigrants are eligible for Medicare depends on several factors, including how long they’ve paid into the system.

“New immigrants are not eligible for Medicare regardless of their age. Once immigrants meet the residency requirements, eligibility and enrollment work the same as they do for others.”

Trump on entitlement programs

Trump’s comments on entitlement programs haven’t always been consistent or entirely clear, but his campaign and he both maintain they will “save” the program.

During an interview with CNBC in March, Trump said that there are numerous things lawmakers could do to address solvency.

“There is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements,” Trump said, declining to list any of those policy proposals.

Trump’s campaign website posted a video of him back in January 2023, saying Republicans “should not cut a penny” from Medicare or Social Security to pay for other legislation.

The problems facing Social Security and Medicare aren’t related to Congress reducing the amount of tax dollars flowing into the programs. Rather it is the structure for the programs lawmakers set up previously.

Without action by Congress, the trust funds won’t be able to account for benefit payments in the long term.

So the challenge for the next president won’t be preventing lawmakers from taking action related to Social Security and Medicare, but helping find a bipartisan path forward on legislation to change revenue, spending, or both.

Trump does want to end taxes on Social Security benefits, writing on social media in July that “SENIORS SHOULD NOT PAY TAX ON SOCIAL SECURITY!”

Henry Aaron, the Bruce and Virginia MacLaury Chair and senior fellow in the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, wrote in a detailed analysis of the platform that Trump’s proposal to end income tax on Social Security benefits “would accelerate trust fund depletion by about two years and deepen the long-run funding gap by more than 7%.”

Harris policies

Harris’ campaign website says she would “protect Social Security and Medicare against relentless attacks from Donald Trump and his extreme allies.”

“She will strengthen Social Security and Medicare for the long haul by making millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share in taxes,” the policy page states. “She will always fight to ensure that Americans can count on getting the benefits they earned.”

Harris announced in early October during an appearance on “The View” that if elected she would work toward including long-term home care for seniors enrolled in Medicare.

“There are so many people in our country who are right in the middle: They’re taking care of their kids and they’re taking care of their aging parents, and it’s just almost impossible to do it all, especially if they work,” Harris said during the live interview. “We’re finding that so many are then having to leave their job, which means losing a source of income, not to mention the emotional stress.”

The proposals would likely need partial, if not complete, buy-in from Congress to move forward and could come with a $40 billion annual price tag, though the campaign noted in a fact sheet that there are pay-fors.

“These new benefits will be fully paid for and extend the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by expanding Medicare drug price negotiations, increasing the discounts drug manufacturers cover for certain brand-name drugs in Medicare and addressing Medicare fraud,” it states.

A Harris administration would also “crack down on pharmaceutical benefit managers (PBMs) to increase transparency, disclose more information on cost, and regulate other practices that raise prices” and “implement international tax reform” to pay for the changes.

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A new survey finds large majorities of those polled in Wisconsin and nationally support a collection of proposals to reform the Social Security program. (Getty Images)

About 4 out of 5 Wisconsin residents in a new survey favor taxing higher-income Americans to support Social Security, reducing benefits for the wealthiest recipients and gradually raising the age for people to collect from the federal retirement program.

The report, released Thursday, is the product of a University of Maryland research program looking at six major topics during the 2024 election cycle. The six surveys conducted by the Program for Public Consultation (PPC) polled national samples as well as samples from six swing states in the presidential election, including Wisconsin. A previous report examined public attitudes toward abortion and reproductive rights.

The PPC uses online surveys that brief participants with arguments for and against various possible ways of addressing an issue — in this instance, reforms to the Social Security system.

The Social Security survey is based on forecasts that the retirement program’s trust fund that collects revenues and pays benefits to retirees will no longer be able to pay out full benefits by 2033, requiring cutbacks for all retirees.

Established in the 1930s, Social Security pays benefits to retirees through a payroll tax levied on current workers. Too few current workers paying into the program means it will fall short of the payments obligated for beneficiaries.

“Very large bipartisan majorities support four reforms to revenues and benefits that would eliminate 101% of the Social Security Trust Fund’s long-term shortfall,” the PPC survey report states.

Support was similar for the proposals in all six swing states in the survey as well as the nation as a whole, according to the report’s authors.

The proposals, their impact on the shortfall, and their support among Wisconsin survey participants by party, are:

• Subjecting income over $400,000 a year to the payroll tax, reducing the shortfall by 60%; supported by 85% of Republicans and 92% of Democrats. Currently, wages over $169,000 aren’t subject to the tax.
• Gradually increasing the payroll tax from 6.2% to 6.5% over six years, reducing the shortfall by 15%; supported by 85% of Republicans and 88% of Democrats.
• Reducing benefits for the top 20% of income earners, reducing the shortfall by 11%; supported by 90% of Republicans and 94% of Democrats.
• Gradually raising the retirement age, currently 67, to 68 by 2033, reducing the shortfall by 15%; supported by 89% of Republicans and 87% of Democrats.

Taken together, those four proposals would eliminate 101% of the trust fund shortfall, according to the report.

The design of the survey enabled participants to consider the collection of proposals in concert with each other, not just in isolation.

“While some of these proposals — such as raising the retirement age or raising payroll taxes — are not popular in themselves, when Americans consider the full picture, large bipartisan majorities support taking tough steps to secure the Social Security program,” said the Program for Public Consultation’s director, Steven Kull. “We were struck by how similar the Republicans and Democrats are on all these questions.”

In addition, however, large bipartisan majorities also favored some benefit increase, which would offset some of the gains, reducing the total savings to 78%.

• Increasing the minimum monthly benefit to $1,570 from the current $1,066 gained the backing of 70% of the Wisconsin participants (65% of Republicans and 77% of Democrats).
• Increasing benefits for people 85 and older by $100 a month was supported by 65% (58% of Republicans and 80% of Democrats).
• Increasing annual cost of living adjustments (COLA) was supported by 66% (62% of Republicans, 68% of Democrats). 

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