Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo: “I don't know why everybody is afraid of raising the retirement age”
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From the May 6, 2025, edition of Fox Business' Mornings with Maria
MARIA BARTIROMO (ANCHOR): Specifically, go back to the cuts here for a second on Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid that you want to see. What specifically, what number, and how much do you think they could cut without really cutting into the muscle of what people are expecting, our seniors?
MAYA MACGUINEAS (PRESIDENT, COMMITTEE FOR A RESPONSIBLE FEDERAL BUDGET): Well let me — yeah. Let me first say where I think the target should be. Because, I think Secretary Bessent has laid out the exact rate target.
BARTIROMO: Well, he knows. [CROSSTALK]
MACGUINEAS: He knows about this issue, and he cares about this issue. And he said we need to get our budget deficits down from where they are above 6% of GDP to 3% of GDP. Let's go. Let's make that our target, that is a very aggressive number. But keep in mind, we used to talk about balancing the budget. This is only half that, right? So, this is getting it to a sustained deficit, where we used to be shooting for zero. That would take about $7.5 trillion in savings over a budget window, and that is about five times as much as the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which is the previous and only debt reduction deal that we've had in over a decade. So, it's very significant. It is doable, but it's certainly aggressive enough that it would reassure markets. You need to look at everything though.
On Social Security, I'll say the hard things other people won't. We need to talk about raising the retirement age and slowing the growth of benefits for people at the higher end. We need to talk about our delivery system in Medicare. We need to talk about all sorts of things like how we charge different amounts of money for the same healthcare in different areas, and create something called "site neutral." On Medicaid, we have all these provider taxes that are really state gimmicks, scams, honestly. We need to clear them out of there and do those first, $7.5 trillion of savings is a lot, the 3% target is what we should be shooting for.
BARTIROMO: By the way, I don't know why everybody is afraid of raising the retirement age.
MACGUINEAS: I know! [CROSSTALK]
BARTIROMO: We're working — we're living longer, and we're working longer anyway. Nobody actually, you know, retires and then goes and jumps on the hammock. Right? I mean, they're doing other stuff. [CROSSTALK]
MACGUINEAS: And it's not for brick layers. It's not for somebody who's been doing back-breaking work. But people who are sitting at their desks, who are working until 70, 80, we're living decades longer. We can't afford not to do this. [CROSSTALK]
BARTIROMO: In my view, and I hope I'm not insulting anybody at home, because I love our viewers so much, but I don't think that's a tough one.