If lawmakers decide to cut spending on the backs of Medicare and Social Security recipients, do you think that the federal government should reduce principle and interest payments to all citizens who hold US debt as well?
Should all US creditors of various federal debts have skin in the game, not only Social Security recipients, especially since politicians made the Social Security Trust fund a creditor?
In other words, if the government partially defaults on Social Security benefits then shouldn't the same happen to all other citizens who hold U.S. debts?
For various reasons, lawmakers have allowed the government to invest the money in the Social Security Trust Fund in interest bearing US Treasury instruments (some of the most stable, reliable investments in the world).
I think they should EXPAND Social Security and Medicare, but if they decide to cut such benefits (for whatever reason--and that reason is basically that the Baby Boomer generation is SO huge the people and the government put together didn't save enough to pay for their retirement) that's not defaulting on those Treasury instruments.
Even if every cent owed to those Treasury instruments is fully repaid (exactly as I expect they will be), Social Security becomes unable to pay full benefits within my lifetime.
Since Congress has borrowed all surpluses in the Social Security Trust Fund, I see "cutting pay-outs from those programs" and "defaulting on US debt" as similar.