WASHINGTON >> Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., finally recognized this week what leading figures in his party had been telling him for a year: Most Republicans no longer wish to discuss cutting Social Security and Medicare as a way to balance the federal budget and bring down the soaring debt.

After decades of talk of scaling back the popular — and increasingly expensive — federal entitlement programs for older Americans, Republicans have for now abandoned that approach. It is an acknowledgment of the political risks of shrinking benefits relied on by millions of voters.

The capitulation by Scott, who Friday relented and explicitly walled off Social Security and Medicare from his proposal to terminate all federal programs every five years and subject them to congressional review, was the latest evidence that Republicans would be looking elsewhere for savings in a coming showdown with the White House and congressional Democrats.

The hardening position of the party will significantly affect the dynamic around seeking spending cuts in exchange for raising the federal debt limit later this year by focusing much of the scrutiny instead on domestic spending, foreign aid and other safety-net programs such as Medicaid and food stamps.

The shift comes as it has grown increasingly clear that Social Security and Medicare are unsustainable in their current form; new forecasts from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released this week showed spending growth on the programs rapidly outpacing the growth in federal tax revenue over the next decade, as a wave of baby boomers reach retirement age and begin to tap their benefits.

“The political rhetoric surrounding the issue is completely at odds with the reality,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Center for a Responsible Budget.

“If we do nothing, there will be brutal across-the-board cuts in Social Security benefits and to providers in Medicare.”

It is a sharp reversal for Republicans who previously have regularly pursued “privatization” of both Social Security and Medicare to reduce federal red ink by shifting more responsibility and costs on to those covered by the programs — efforts that largely failed after running into a political buzz saw. The evolution in the longtime position has been accelerated by warnings from Donald Trump, the former president and current presidential candidate, that Republicans should not touch either program — and that they will hear from him if they do.

Scott said the agenda he issued early last year, as chair of the Senate Republican campaign arm, was never intended to propose cuts in the popular retirement programs, although he did not include any carveout for either in his plan.

Scott has argued that his ideas were purposefully mischaracterized by President Joe Biden as well as Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the minority leader, as cutting Social Security and Medicare, when his goal was to protect them.

Still, in a tacit concession that he had erred, Scott wrote in an opinion essay in The Washington Examiner on Friday that he was amending the proposal he made as chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee to exclude “Social Security, Medicare, national security, veterans’ benefits and other essential services” from the requirement for a five-year review.