Social Security and Medicare should be “completely off the table” when it comes to negotiations over the debt ceiling. So said Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy in a January 29 Sunday interview on CBS.
So why does Joe Biden keep saying otherwise? Why did he use an address to the entire nation, with Speaker McCarthy just feet behind him, to state yet another falsehood (to use the polite term)? What part of the word “completely” or “off the table” does the President not understand?
The only possible answer is Biden believes what Democrats believe, that you the American voter can be fooled.
It’s not a new tactic. Democrats have been using various versions of Republicans want to “cut Social Security” or “cut Medicare” for decades. Ronald Reagan famously put Jimmy Carter in his place in their only debate in 1980 with the one liner that will live forever, “There you go again.”
So then, what are the facts?
Fact: Speaker McCarthy has called for “strengthening” the two programs. “If you read our Commitment to America, all we talk about is strengthening Medicare and Social Security,” McCarthy told CBS’s Face the Nation on January 29th.
The GOP unveiled their Commitment to America plan in September 2022, which calls for holding Washington accountable by addressing Social Security and Medicare, among other proposals.
The national debt now stands at over $31.5 trillion, and the president shows little interest in reining in federal spending other than to say the debt ceiling must be raised.
Of course Biden takes credit for deficit reduction, even though nearly all of that is the expiration of temporary Covid spending. It’s like turning the scale back 10 pounds and saying, “Look, I lost weight.”
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