Why don’t they ever gut Welfare?
The permanent bureaucracy and progressive nanny-state in Washington DC is “gutting” Social Security just fine on it own.
Social Security has become welfare. People tend to think of retirement, but Social Security gives money to all sorts of people (including illegals). I have (or know of) at least five people who are receiving Social Security in my family that simply are not working. If they want to cut way back on the costs, then they should scale it back to retirees.
For the same reason they never talk about laying off or closing librarians, street workers, etc. They only talk about laying off cops and firepersons.