During President Biden’s State of the Union address, he said that Republicans want to cut Social Security and Medicare, and the Republican side of the chamber erupted in jeers and shouts of “liar!” Two of those loudly jeering—Senators Rick Scott of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah—had explicitly made those proposals. Biden then masterfully got the Republican caucuses in both Houses to declare their support for both big entitlement programs.
Michael Hiltzik, business columnist for the Los Angeles, sets the record straight about the Republican stance on Social Security.
From left, GOP Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah jeer during the State of the Union address when President Biden accused Republicans of wanting to cut Social Security. Both senators have proposed exactly that.
(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP/Getty Images)
Hiltzik writes:
President Biden has congressional Republicans all asquirm as he conducts a post-State of the Union speech national tour.
Why? Because Biden has doubled down — or as Fox News has it, “tripled down” — on his assertion during the speech that the GOP has been planning to cut Social Security.
Not so, they say. Never happened. Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) were even caught on camera during the speech wearing “Who, me?” expressions of injured innocence.
It will be my objective to phase out Social Security, to pull it out by the roots.
— Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), during his 2010 campaign for the Senate
Unfortunately for them, we have the evidence, as does Biden. Cutting Social Security along with Medicare has been part of the Republican platform for decades.
As I’ve reported before, they often hide their intentions behind a scrim of impenetrable jargon, plainly hoping that Americans won’t do the necessary math to penetrate their subterfuge.
Let’s take a jaunt through the GOP approach to Social Security and Medicare.
Start with their description of these programs as “entitlements,” which they’ve tried to turn into a dirty word. The truth is that they are entitlements, in the sense that most Americans have been paying into these programs for all their working lives, mostly through the payroll tax. So, yes, they’re “entitled” to receive benefits in return.
Republicans, including former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), have consistently blamed the federal debt on “entitlements” — never mind that their 2017 tax cut for the wealthy has blown a multitrillion-dollar hole in the budget.
They know they’re on thin ice with the public when they talk about benefit cuts, which is why Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) once recommended discussing their ideas only “behind closed doors.”
Now we can turn to the specifics of Lee’s and Scott’s plans. In widely circulated videos from Lee’s first successful Senate campaign in 2010 he can be seen and heard stating as follows: “It will be my objective to phase out Social Security, to pull it out by the roots.” He said that was why he was running for the Senate, and added, “Medicare and Medicaid are of the same sort. They need to be pulled up.”
As for Scott, his 12-point “Rescue America” plan, issued last year, included a proposal to sunset all federal legislation after five years. “If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.” The implications for Social Security and Medicare, which were created by federal legislation, were unmistakable — so much so that the proposal made Republican officeholders’ skin crawl.
Column: Mike Pence, would-be president, has a plan to kill Social Security. It will cost you
McConnell disavowed the proposal on the spot and has continued to do so, telling a home-state radio host after the Biden speech that the sunset provision is “not a Republican plan.That was the Rick Scott plan.”
That said, it’s a priceless foil for Biden. When Republicans brayed during his speech that he was lying about it, he offered to make Scott’s manifesto available to anyone who called his office for it. At one of his subsequent appearances, a copy of Scott’s plan was placed on every seat.
The GOP can’t easily wriggle away from its intentions. Let’s examine the fiscal 2023 budget proposal issued by the Republican Study Committee, a key policy body, last June under the title “Blueprint to Save America.”
This plan would increase the Social Security full retirement age, which today is 66 or 67 (depending on one’s year of birth), to 70 by 2040. According to Kathleen Romig, the Social Security expert at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, this would translate into a 20% cut in lifetime benefits compared with current law.
As I’ve reported before, raising the full retirement age is a Trojan horse that would affect all retirees across the board, but harm Black workers, lower-income workers and those in physically demanding jobs the most.
It would create particular hardships for those choosing to retire early and collect their benefits prior to their full retirement age.
Doing so exacts a lifetime reduction in monthly benefits, based on a formula aimed at equalizing the lifetime benefit among those who retire early, those who wait until their full retirement age, and those who defer collecting until that age (they receive a bump-up in benefits for every year they delay, topping out at age 70).
Raising the full retirement age to 70, Romig calculates, would mean that retirees who start collecting at the minimum age of 62 would receive only 57% of their full benefit….
The Republican Study Committee also would make it harder for disabled workers to qualify for benefits, and would lengthen the period before those who are disabled and younger than 65 qualify for Medicare to five years from two. This falls into the category of balancing the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable members of society.
As for Medicare, the Republican Study Committee proposes raising the eligibility age, currently 65, so it matches the Social Security retirement age. It also would transfer many more Medicare accounts to private insurance. The committee claims this would save money.
The rest of his incisive analysis is behind a paywall, unfortunately. He demonstrates beyond doubt that Republicans have wanted for years to put these big programs on the chopping block, which are lifelines for senior citizens. They have no objections, however, to cutting the taxes of the wealthiest. That was Trump’s biggest accomplishment: tax cuts for those with the most.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Just curious…would all the GOP members in Senate and House also be willing to cut their own Social Security benefits???
These criminals long ago voted themselves hefty pension plans paid for by taxpayers.
I have been trying to figure out who the character on the right in the photo with Scott and Lee is Anybody?
Bill Cassidy from Louisiana.
The three are from 3 different conservative religious sects. Koch-funded Paul Weyrich co-founded ALEC, The Heritage Foundation which employed Clarence Thomas’ wife to the tune of $600,000 and, the religious right which is made up of conservative Catholics and Christians.
Weyrich’s training manual is posted at Theocracy Watch.
Headline in this 24 hour news cycle- “Pence Haley double down on cutting Social Security and Medicare.” Presumably, they want old people to die like feral dogs in the gutter, just like other libertarians.
Reportedly, during her campaign announcement, Haley said that when she grows up she wants to be like the pastor who gave the invocation for her event- John Hagee. That’s one weird guy. We’ll see how many of the religious right are stupid enough to switch to Haley if she’s the nominee.
Similar to JD Vance, critics claim Haley converted to her new religion for political reasons. Vance chose conservative Catholic (it’s the power base in Ohio). Haley chose protestant, evidently liking Hagee’s version or his base of support.
Religion News Service wrote, 2-16-2023, “(Haley) was raised in the south and schooled at a segregation academy.” Oh, the irony, for Ann Coulter to tell her this week to go back to where she came from.
Vouchers force taxpayers to fund segregation academies.
Haley attended the Orangebury Prepatory School. The school’s segregationist history is described at Wikipedia.
It seems as though the Republican party is an organization of sociopaths.
Yes they are.
Indeed. You nailed it.
https://theintercept.com/2020/01/13/biden-cuts-social-security/
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the kind of propaganda that appeals to the same folks who watched Fox News and “knew” that Dominion Voting Machines were corrupted.
You got us. We need to keep voting to defeat those evil dems and progressives and democratic socialists even if it means electing more Ron Johnsons and Donald Trumps. Because no matter what those dems/progressives/democratic socialists have done in the last 10 or 20 years, this poster always “proves” that they are secretly in bed with the far right agenda to target everyone who isn’t rich because of something they once said or did under very different circumstances.
Look, here’s proof, she says! Just like she could – if the Putin-funded propagandists decided that they didn’t like Bernie Sanders — present the same quality of evidence that “proves” Bernie Sanders has secret plans to make sure that charter schools can always take money from public schools and that Bernie plans to secretly prevent the passage of any law that would limit the right of teenagers to bring their assault weapons to school. After all, here is a vote or some quote from a decade or more ago, which is far more relevant than what the non-right wing politician that this person wants to lie about has said and done the last decade.
Those who can get your to believe absurdities can get you to commit atrocities. The absurdity this person believes is that the way to a progressive nirvana is to defeat the people who secretly want to destroy Social Security — the democrats — even if it totally empowers the far right to control our Congress/Presidency/Supreme Court. Because only if the US becomes a Putin-style “democracy” will the forces of progressivism win.
And these folks will NEVER give up until every last Democrat and progressive is defeated.
But anytime anyone suggests that defeating what has become a truly frightening Republican Party, this poster is right here telling us we are wrong.
With average lifespans declining in the US now, the age of eligibility for SS and Medicare needs to be lowered, not raised. Americans are not living longer lives anymore.
Good point.
According to Common Dreams the GOP is working to advance two bills that would allow them to cut earned benefits behind closed doors.
“Two bills, the TRUST Act and the Bipartisan Social Security Commission Act, would do just that. Both of these bills would create fast-tracked commissions to cut Social Security and Medicare behind closed doors. They are designed to give politicians cover to enact unpopular benefit cuts and claim they had no choice.
The Biden Administration has rightfully called these bills “death panels” for Social Security and Medicare. Democrats must stand strong and refuse to go behind closed doors with Republicans. They must continue to make it clear, as Biden did last night, that only a clean increase in the debt limit with no cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or any other program is acceptable. ”
People need to realize that the only thing standing between them and a dystopian old age future is to vote to keep Democrats standing between them and the GOP plan to slash benefits. https://www.commondreams.org/expand-social-security
How can this author suggest that tax cuts are the reason for deficits when Fox News regularly reports on government waste?
Tsk, tsk. How do you expect a comprehensible answer to a question that contains the sentence fragment “Fox News regularly reports”? Logically impossible, as Spock might say.
It will be a hard sell for the GOP to convince voters that Social Security is too big a burden for the American people to carry, particularly when we are paying for billionaire tax cuts and loopholes. There are many ways to increase funding for Social Security including simply removing the cap for top earners. We cannot allow the sneering, jeering radical right to send more seniors into poverty.
The GOP goal is to woo younger voters. What other issue choice allows them to serve the rich (while accepting the fact that the days of their voters- the bigoted, older White guys- are limited?
The right is ideologically conditioned to believe that the American people are little more than their stepping stones.
There is no question here. Republicans are on record over a l-o-n-g period of time that they want to cut Social Security and Medicare (and Medicaid).
This is who they are.
It should be hilarious to watch them fall all over themselves trying to lie and over up their pasts. But it’s sad that people have be reminded of this over and over again. Neither history or evidence have been on their side since the program was created. Waiting for Lee to say what he said in 2010 was a youthful indiscretion.
They opposed both to begin with and have looked for ways to trash both ever since.
The poster above got it right. These people are freaking psychopaths. Just looking at Scott gives be the total creeps. He’s like a stock villain in some horror film franchise.
It’s been the dream of the GOP to destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid since forever. We should have Medicare for all like every other rich industrialized democracy.
Now when the president makes a speech in Congress the GOP jeers him, hoots, hollers and screams liar at the POTUS. What’s next, violence against the president as he tries to speak. Will Marjorie Taylor Greene be flinging her own feces at Biden? I would not put anything past these GOP reactionary thugs, what’s more violent than the Jan 6th insurrection. The MAGA mob tried to shut down the government and create some kind of Trumpian coup d’etat.
One of the interesting realities of English political discourse is the jeering Parliament. I wonder if we are moving that way.
At least the British can more easily dump horrible politicians through a vote of no confidence. We are stuck with them for at least four years.
Macron, a neoliberal leader, in France intends to raise the retirement age in France, and people have taken to the streets to protest the plan. We can learn something from their resistance instead of simply continuously accepting more loss of the social contract. https://www.facebook.com/groups/553378529871055
Don’t people realize that they have been paying their OWN money into Social Security and Medicare for their ENTIRE working lives??? So when the GOP says they want to get rid of these things, do people wonder where their money will be going???? I do. Maybe someone can explain it.
Well, I believe the idea is that getting rid of Medicare/Social Security would be a “tax break” for the middle class and working poor. Of course, the $$$ from the “tax break” would most definitely be invested for retirement….SMH.
Thanks Lisa. But how does that work and what does it even mean?
The change would put money into Wall Street so that its scum can live like Madoff.
It’s the Libertarian dream….every man for himself. If you’re not smart with your $$$$ then too bad and good riddance. Exist within poor/work houses or debtors prison and get planted in Potter’s Field after a horrible sickness. Of course the people pushing this are wealthy and have great healthcare for life.
Well said, Linda.
Exactly, Lisa. Libertarians are Dickensian, always were. There is a frequent commentor at WaPo ed articles who’s libertarian. He pairs his excoriations of “government schools” with regular exhortations to repeal compulsory education and child labor laws.
It didn’t used to matter… but their once-fringe ideology has seeped into the Republican party.
We should reject the term ‘entitlements’ and replace it with earned benefits because we contributed to it for our entire working lives.
You’re correct! But then the Libertarian ghouls will tell you that you only deserve x=$$$ because that’s all that you actually put in….you “earn” nothing more. They like using your money for bonds and to prop up the stock market, but don’t believe that you have a right to any of that windfall (interest/gains).
Entitlement is actually the perfect word, but the Republicans managed to change the meaning of entitlements from absolutely BEING entitled to something to “feeling”entitled.
Entitlements are what one IS entitled to, not what one “feels” entitled to but has no right to expect.
Clean water is an entitlement.
Republicans should be asked whether they believe clean water is an entitlement or not, and Dems should take back the meaning of the word, instead of allowing the right wing to change the meaning of “entitlement” to “something people FEEL they should have the right to, but does not have the absolute right to” (although it’s possible that they might get it if someone in power chooses to give it to them.)
Vouchers are truly entitlements. Unlike Social Security, no one paid into vouchers for years and years. Taxpayers are expected to pay the private school tuition of kids whose parents have been paying tuition themselves.
Thanks for standing up for correct English usage, NYCPSP! “Entitlement” does indeed have that secondary meaning, but only in the context of “a sense/ feeling of.”
Step One
Abolish retirement pensions for all senators and representatives.
Step Two
Abolish current and future health care for all senators and representatives.
Now that would be really cruel….but I think a compromise would be sufficient. Senators and Representatives should have the same pension and healthcare portfolios that are offered to regular federal employees. It used to be that people wanted to work as civil servants for the government because the benefits were great while the pay was average. Things have changed! Let those at the top have to think about high deductibles and pension/COLA funds and then they may sing a different tune.
So many representatives are billionaires or multi-millionaires that they don’t need the benefit. People like Scott and Romney sit on top of a mountain of cash and work to slash the benefits of working class Americans. We should stop electing rich people as representatives. They don’t represent working families.
They don’t need the benefits, but everyone deserves to have a certain safety net (in old age) just because they work. It would be nice if we didn’t have to elect rich people into government positions, but it costs a bloody fortune to run for office. No regular Joe Schmo has a chance unless he’s propped up by a ton of $$$.
Lisa– I think the idea that Congress gets gold-plated benefits is an old saw that is not completely correct anymore. In fact (per Snopes), some suspect the reason Reps were so interested in repealing Obamacare is because they miss the old Fed Employees Health Benefit Program.
They’ve been on Obamacare since 2010. But not just any old Obamacare– they get a gold-level policy with a 72% subsidy! Meanwhile someone making $25k gets only 50% subsidy for a silver-level policy…
Pension plans were cut back for those entering Congress after 1984, at which point they were reqd to participate in the Soc Sec program. Their version [dovetailed to SS, but still based on top 3 yrs of salary averaged, & vested after 5 yrs] is called FERS. Example: prior to 1984, if you worked for 22 yrs and had a top 3-yr salary ave of $154k, your pension was just under $85k. Thereafter, if you work for 20 yrs with the same $154k top 3-yr salary ave, your pension is only $52.5k. [There are other details; find at wiki article “Congressional pension.”]
Such a trite, useless talking point. Let’s get all excited and distracted about the benefits of 435 persons. That way we can trivialize the size of the U.S. population, more than 330 million people.
Perhaps you could provide a meaningful explanation as to why our esteemed Congress people cannot find it in their hearts to design a health insurance plan for all. It would also be useful to know why American health costs are so outrageously high. These same individuals are quite capable of providing for themselves and their families. Although my talking points may be trite and pointless, there is a profound element of lack of compassion in our society.
Have you read the news about what “esteemed Congress people” [very sic] have done, pro and con on healthcare since 1994? You may have noticed there are a few other players in the game, all with different interests. Focusing people on the useless rhetorical point of admittedly much-better-than-average benefits that 435 people get and extrapolating that this has anything to do with the current state of healthcare is of no value whatsoever. But that’s the purpose of the talking point in the first place, to distract from more important things.
The big problem is that our reps are on the healthcare lobby payroll. We need to get the money out of politics.
Excellent suggestions, Ms. Shure!
Annual social security outlays represent 5% of GDP. Meanwhile private health care represents 20%. The medical industrial complex represents a tremendous drag on economic outcomes where social security is the deal of the century that actually contributes to society.
The top photo is priceless. From R [Lee] to L [Scott] it looks like they are donkeys braying “Hee… Haw!”
Yes, Scott and Lee, the two who publicly called for abolishing Social Security and Medicare.