Trump Endorses Texas Republican Who’s Open To Raising Taxes, Overhauling Social Security

Despite saying often he opposes cutting Social Security and Medicare, and raising taxes, former President Donald Trump has endorsed a Republican House candidate who’s been pushing a commission that could do both of those things.

Trump reiterated his support Tuesday for House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas). On his social media site, Trump reposted a message from late January, in which he endorsed Arrington as “working hard to Cut Wasteful Spending, Grow our Economy, Lower your Taxes, Secure the Border, Support our Military and Vets, and Protect and Defend the Second Amendment.”

Except Arrington has since then publicly said he’d be open to raising taxes to get the ballooning federal budget deficit in closer to balance, and he favors a proposal for a bipartisan fiscal commission seen by critics as a stealthy way to cut entitlements.

A request for comment to Trump’s campaign was not immediately returned.

In making his push for a fiscal commission, Arrington in late February told Semafor taxes should be under consideration as well as Republicans’ traditionally favored way of cutting the deficit, spending cuts.

“It’s only fair to have both revenue and expenditures on the table,” he said. While that formulation is likely politically realistic — any attempt at a bipartisan “grand bargain” is very unlikely to have deficit reduction from only spending cuts or only tax hikes — it is pretty much anathema among most Republicans.

Trump himself has said he wants further tax cuts on top of the large individual and corporate tax reductions made in 2017 if he gets another term.

On Social Security and Medicare, Trump has been consistent he does not want a big overhaul, like had been proposed by former House Speaker Paul