President Donald Trump said he would not sign legislation that calls for cuts to Social Security or federal health coverage for older and low-income Americans.
“If it cuts it, I would not approve,” the president said in an interview with TIME magazine published Friday, where he was repeatedly asked about cuts to Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security.
Related: Medicaid cut proposals incite fierce resistance
“I would veto it, yeah. But they’re not going to do that,” he added, noting that he is open to measures that reduce “waste, fraud, and abuse” in Medicaid. Republicans are debating cuts to the program as they look for spending reductions to offset a tax bill.
Trump’s comments put hard limits on congressional lawmakers as they return to Washington next week to debate the specifics of a tax-and-spending package they plan to pass in the coming months. The legislation, which will likely pass on GOP votes alone, will look to renew Trump’s first-term tax cuts, but also calls for budget reductions.
Lawmakers have yet to agree on the scope of the spending cuts they’ll pursue. Republicans only have to find $4 billion worth of reductions for the bill to meet the parameters of a budget outline they passed earlier this month — a relatively small figure in the overall federal budget. But some hardline House conservatives have called for culling as much as $2 trillion in spending over the next decade.
To make reductions at that scale they’ll likely need to curb Medicaid, food stamps and other social programs with tens of millions of beneficiaries.
A group of moderate Republicans sought — and gained — assurances from House Speaker Mike Johnson that the final bill not cut benefits for qualified Medicaid individuals and institutions. Several senators have also voiced opposition to cutting federal health benefits for low-income households.
Johnson has set a target of the end of May to enact the tax bill, while Senate Republicans have talked of being able to complete the process by August. The 2017 tax cuts don’t expire until the end of the year.
The outline of the legislation calls for up to $5.3 trillion of tax cuts over a decade and raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion.
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