Biden renews Social Security attack on GOP despite ‘hypocrisy’ of own record
President Biden renewed his dubious claim Thursday that congressional Republicans are angling to gut Social Security and Medicare during a trip to Florida — without addressing new hypocrisy allegations from Republicans who note Biden actually pushed such policies for decades.
Biden entirely ignored the re-discovery of his own past advocacy during a GOP-bashing speech in Tampa — though White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was pressed about the awkward juxtaposition during a press gaggle on Air Force One.
“Is the only difference the fact that Biden’s no longer in favor of that?” a reporter asked Jean-Pierre, referring to Biden’s attack on a plan by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) to sunset all federal laws after five years and Biden’s own 1975 bill to do the same thing every four years.
“A bill from the 1970s is not part of the president’s agenda. You have to listen to what the president said the last couple of years about protecting and fighting for Medicare and Social Security and that will remain the case,” Jean-Pierre said.
“He was very clear when he spoke to millions of Americans at the State of the Union [Tuesday] about that. He’ll be clear today when he’s in Florida on what he sees [as] the fight ahead, and how important it is to protect again, what taxpayers have paid into and what they deserve, Medicare and Social Security.”
When he took the stage in Tampa, Biden slammed Scott for his “outrageous” proposal and criticized a separate plan from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) to hold annual votes on federal spending without explicitly vowing to ax the programs.
“Look, I know that a lot of Republicans, their dream is to cut Social Security, Medicare. Well, let me say this: If that’s your dream, I’m your nightmare,” Biden said.
“The very idea the senator from Florida wants to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block every five years, I find to be somewhat outrageous, so outrageous that you might not even believe it,” Biden said.
Scott’s proposal has virtually no support in Congress, but Biden has used his fringe plan to repeatedly blast Republicans as intent on slashing senior citizens’ benefits.
Even before the rediscovery that Biden previously wanted to sunset laws every four years — an even shorter timeframe than Scott — the president had taken heat for acting as if congressional Republicans were seriously looking to cut safety net programs despite House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) repeatedly ruling it out.
“If anyone tries to cut Social Security, I’m going to stop them, If anyone tries to cut Medicare, we’re going to stop them,” Biden continued in the same vein in Tampa.
Biden faced heckling from Republicans Tuesday night when he claimed that they were trying to cut the programs, before it emerged Wednesday that he had in fact pushed to sunset federal laws and to freeze cost-of-living increases to the senior benefit programs throughout his 36 years in the Senate.
In 1975, Biden introduced legislation to sunset “all provisions of the law in effect on the effective date of this Act which authorizes new budget authority for a period of more than four fiscal years.” In a speech at the time, Biden said he was worried about the “staggering” increase in federal spending.
In 1984, he co-sponsored legislation to freeze federal spending and suspend cost-of-living increases for Social Security.
As late as 1995, Biden was boasting about his efforts, saying in a Senate floor speech: “When I argued that we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well. I meant Medicare and Medicaid … and I not only tried it once, I tried it twice. I tried it a third time and I tried it a fourth time.
Biden’s flip-flopping resurfaced in a dossier compiled by former Republican Capitol Hill aide Chris Jacobs, the founder of the Juniper Research Group.
Johnson fired back at Biden Thursday, saying, “it was Joe Biden himself who suggested freezing these programs.”
Florida Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) tweeted Wednesday that Biden was exhibiting, “Hypocrisy at its finest.”
“Can’t make this up,” Buchanan wrote. “Despite falsely claiming that Republicans want to cut Social Security and Medicare, President Biden is the one who repeatedly tried to ‘freeze federal spending’ – including for Social Security and Medicare.”
Biden separately faced claims of hypocrisy Tuesday night from Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who noted that Biden’s administration recently proposed a $3 billion cut to the enhanced-benefits Medicare Advantage program.
The White House has defended Biden’s recent messaging that the GOP is coming for entitlements in part by pointing to advocacy by members of the large House Republican Study Committee to raise the retirement age for future beneficiaries.
Biden outraged Republicans with his attacks during the State of the Union.
“Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans, some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset,” Biden claimed amid an uproar from the GOP side of the House chamber.
The president first attempted to calm the heckling by telling his audience, “I’m not saying it’s a majority” — before growing defiant as the din increased.
“Anybody who doubts it, contact my office. I’ll give you a copy of the proposal,” Biden said amid the jeers.
“Liar!” shouted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
“I’m glad to see — no, I tell you, I enjoy conversion,” the president shot back.
McCarthy has repeatedly and publicly ruled out such cuts as he and other conservatives push for reductions in federal discretionary spending and a clawback of unspent pandemic stimulus funds to resolve a debt ceiling impasse.
