The new administration wants to slash aid for health, food and housing, but many of those programs now reach the struggling working class he is courting.
In his first term as president, Donald J. Trump targeted what many Republicans consider blatant welfare waste — a rule that gives food stamps to millions of people with incomes above the usual limit on eligibility.
His proposed change would have saved billions but hurt low-income workers making the bootstraps efforts that conservatives say they want to encourage. Advocates for the needy resisted and the effort to shrink the program died during the pandemic, but it illustrates a challenge Mr. Trump may face as he pledges to cut spending in his second term while courting the working class.
Republicans are mulling deep cuts in safety net spending, partly to offset big tax cuts aimed mostly at the wealthy. But some programs they propose to cut reach not just the poorest Americans but also struggling working class voters, many of whom helped elect Mr. Trump in November.
“There is absolutely a tension,” said Douglas Elmendorf, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office who teaches at Harvard. “The Republican Party’s support is increasingly coming from people who would be hurt by standard conservative policy.”
How much the Republicans will cut is unclear, with many forces in play. Reasons to expect deep reductions start with Mr. Trump’s first term, when he sought wholesale cuts in food stamps, Medicaid and housing aid, and nearly repealed the Affordable Care Act, which provides health insurance to 44 million Americans.
Though most of his efforts stalled in Congress or in court, he returns atop a movement with more policy expertise, while pushing tax cuts amid huge deficits, which increases the political pressure on safety net spending.