Tom Tiffany is the Republican running for governor of Wisconsin. Voters there care a lot about Social Security. An AARP poll found that rising prices and Social Security are the top concerns for Wisconsin voters 50 and older.
Tiffany says he won't cut it. But American Journal News went through his record in Congress, and it tells a different story.
"Should we raise that retirement age?"
In May 2023, Tiffany went on the DrydenWire podcast. He started out with a promise. Then he walked right past it:
"If you've paid in for Social Security or Medicare, you should get those benefits. Now as we go forward, life expectancy has changed so much through the decades, and it really hasn't changed with Social Security. So at some point, should we say those beneficiaries that are perhaps under 50, under 40, should we raise that retirement age? That's something I believe should be discussed."
Here's the problem with that. Raising the retirement age is a benefit cut. If you have to wait longer to get your full check, or take a smaller check if you can't wait, you get less money for the same years of work.
His caucus put a number on it: 69
A month after that podcast, the Republican Study Committee released its budget plan. The RSC is a large caucus of House conservatives, and Tiffany has been listed as a member.
Its budget would have raised the age for full Social Security benefits from 67 to 69, a few months at a time, starting in 2026. The Center for American Progress ran the numbers:
- Anyone turning 62 after 2033 would have to wait until 69 for a full benefit.
- Once the age reached 69, every new retiree after that would see their benefits cut by about 13%.
- Today, a worker who retires early at 62 gets 70% of a full benefit. Under the RSC plan, that would drop to about 61%.
That is exactly the kind of change Tiffany said "should be discussed."
He voted to squeeze the agency that pays your benefits
In April 2023, Tiffany voted for the Limit, Save, Grow Act. That was the House Republican plan to cut federal spending in exchange for raising the debt limit. American Journal News reports it would have cut funding for the Social Security Administration, the office that sends out checks and handles benefit fights. It didn't become law.
We've seen what happens when that office gets squeezed. Last year, Tiffany called on Congress to "codify every single DOGE cut" even as its cuts were making it harder for Social Security to serve people. There were nearly 1.37 million Wisconsinites on Social Security at the end of 2024.
The amendment AARP warned about
Tiffany cosponsored a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 2021 and again in 2023. An amendment like that would bar the government from spending more than it takes in, in any year, unless three-fifths of both the House and the Senate voted to allow it.
That sounds harmless until you think about what it does to Social Security. AARP warned Congress in 2018 that a balanced budget amendment "would likely harm Social Security and Medicare, subjecting both programs to potentially deep cuts without regard to the impact on the health and financial security of individuals."
And then the budget bill
Last year, Tiffany voted for Trump's budget bill. It cuts Medicaid by about $1 trillion over ten years, mostly to pay for tax breaks. We've written about what that vote is still costing Wisconsin, a year later.
Tiffany's campaign message is about lower costs. But this isn't the first time his public promises and his private words have split apart: he's been caught on tape telling a voter he hopes to end Wisconsin's income tax altogether, while publicly promising a 10% cut.
What the record shows
Tom Tiffany says people who paid into Social Security should get their benefits. In the same breath, he said raising the retirement age "should be discussed." The conservative caucus he belongs to then proposed raising it to 69, which would cut benefits for new retirees by about 13%. He voted for a 2023 plan that would have cut funding for the agency that pays benefits, and he has twice cosponsored a balanced budget amendment that AARP warned could force deep cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
