House Republican eyes Medicare, Social Security for DOGE cuts

Rep. Mark Alford (R-Mo.) is floating Medicare and Social Security as potential areas of focus for President-elect Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Alford was pressed about potential cost-cutting recommendations by DOGE during his Monday appearance on Fox Business Network’s "Mornings With Maria." The congressman noted, in response, that GOP members recently sat down with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the duo Trump tasked to head up the DOGE effort, to discuss ideas “to cut our budget.”

“We all agree this is an unsustainable area that we’re in right now — almost $36 trillion in debt, and we are spending more on the interest on our debt than we are going to spend on the National Defense Authorization Act this year,” he said.

“And so we’ve got to right the ship, and it’s going to mean cuts. It’s going to mean cuts to the 24 percent of the discretionary spending that we have, and it’s also going to mean looking long-term at the front end of some programs like Social Security and Medicare,” Alford continued.

The Missouri Republican added that doesn’t mean “taking anyone off of what they paid into so far,” but went on to say, “there is some waste, abuse and fraud in Medicare that we can take those numbers back and add to our general coffers and our treasury.” 

“And on the front end on Social Security, I think there’s a way, when people are living longer, they’re retiring later, then on the front end we can move that retirement age back a little bit,” he said.

The Hill has reached out to Alford’s office for further comment. 

There is much speculation around what programs could be targeted for cuts as part of the effort being led by Musk and Ramaswamy.

In a recent sit-down with Axios at the Aspen Security Forum, Ramaswamy said DOGE would seek to root out waste in the entitlement programs, but he put the onus of potential cuts on Congress, saying it’s “a policy decision that belongs to the voters.”

"Right now, there are hundreds of billions of dollars flowing out the door of all of those programs ending up in the hands of people who, even under the statute, should not be receiving those payments,” Ramaswamy said.