Social safety net isn’t rigorously defined in the first place so acting like the definitions are being twisted isn’t a reasonable counter argument.
Pick what labels you want to throw social security, Medicare and Medicaid into. That bucket is about 46% of federal spending and increasing fast. It’s quite easy to get to 50% without including debt payments on things that look like social safety nets (snap, aca subsidies etc).
More importantly as you point out social security, Medicare and Medicaid are growing as a percentage of the budget (and a percentage of gdp) and are not discretionary spending. Those (and defense) are the only places we have any lever to change US debt other than increasing collection. And it’s not politically viable to change them.
Pick what labels you want to throw social security, Medicare and Medicaid into. That bucket is about 46% of federal spending and increasing fast. It’s quite easy to get to 50% without including debt payments on things that look like social safety nets (snap, aca subsidies etc).
More importantly as you point out social security, Medicare and Medicaid are growing as a percentage of the budget (and a percentage of gdp) and are not discretionary spending. Those (and defense) are the only places we have any lever to change US debt other than increasing collection. And it’s not politically viable to change them.