President Biden Rope-A-Doped The Howling Mad Hyenas of the MAGA Fascist Caucus in his SOTU Address

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Republicans have always opposed the “entitlement” programs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid from the time that these programs were first enacted (it is an entitlement because it is a payroll tax on your earnings – for earnings in 2023, the cap is $160,200 – which you pay into over your working life. It’s your money.) Don’t let Republicans tell you any differently, the historical record is clear and speaks for itself.

Every couple of years Republicans propose “reforming” the entitlement programs, which is just code language for privatizing the trust funds to allow the wolves of Wall Street to get their hands on your money, or to make receiving Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid more difficult for individuals to obtain, i.e., raising the retirement age for Social Security, or reducing benefits under Medicare, or imposing work requirements for Medicaid, for example. We’ve been through this so many times over the decades that there should be no debate about this. Republicans oppose the entitlement programs as certainly as the sun rises in the East every morning.

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President Biden in his State of The Union Address made a true statement: “Some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset. I’m not saying it’s a majority. … Anybody who doubts it, contact my office. I’ll give you a copy.”

But the fact checkers like to parse words and assume good faith on the part of Republicans – Why? Weren’t the howling mad hyenas heckling President Biden and calling him a liar during his address evidence enough of their lack of good faith on the part of Republicans? The lazy fact checkers take the position of “yes it is true they said it, but they really didn’t mean it.” This is not fact checking, this is subjective opinion by lazy fact checkers, not supported by decades of historical record of Republican opposition to entitlement programs.

For example, lazy fact checker Glenn Kessler from his ivory tower at the Washington Post:

Biden started to get heckled by the GOP side of the aisle as he said “some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset,” prompting him to add, “I’m not saying it’s majority.”

That’s putting it mildly. Not even the person who wrote the plan that Biden referenced says he supports a “sunset” of the old-age programs. “Sunset” is inside-the-Beltway lingo for programs terminating automatically on a periodic basis unless explicitly renewed by law.

Last year, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, released a 60-page “11-point plan to rescue America” that offered 128 proposals. Buried on Page 39, in a section on government restructuring, was one sentence: “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.”

Scott’s write-up — which offered few details and had no proposed legislative language — was almost immediately rejected by most Senate Republicans.

Scott also said he was being misinterpreted. “No one that I know of wants to sunset Medicare or Social Security, but what we’re doing is we don’t even talk about it. Medicare goes bankrupt in four years. Social Security goes bankrupt in 12 years,” Scott said on Fox News last March. “I think we ought to figure out how we preserve those programs. Every program that we care about, we ought to stop and take the time to preserve those programs.”

No one he knows? Oh really? How about Coup Plotter co-conspirators Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin?

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes does a far better analysis than the Post’s Glenn Kessler.

MSNBC’s Alex Wagner also does a far better analysis than the Post’s Glenn Kessler.

David Badash does the work that lazy fact checkers like Glenn Kessler (among others) did not. Proof some Republicans have repeatedly said they want to gut Social Security and Medicare:

Many across the nation were likely horrified but not surprised Tuesday night when Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and several other House and Senate Republicans lashed out at President Joe Biden as he delivered the State of the Union Address, falsely branding him a “liar” for telling the truth: The GOP has consistently called to gut, sunset, or otherwise dramatically alter or dismantle the critical, life-saving social safety nets of Social Security and Medicare.

But it’s no secret Republicans for years, including recently, have wanted to take an ax to these programs, and other “entitlements,” despite proof they literally save lives.

Just Monday, Bloomberg reported, “House Republican committee and caucus chairs are pushing to create panels to study extending Social Security and Medicare solvency as part of any debt limit deal.”

“The discussion about creating commissions indicates some policy proposals floated by Republicans on entitlements — such as increasing the eligibility age or adding means-testing measures — are a possibility, even as GOP leaders say they’re not negotiating policy changes directly as part of a debt-limit vote,” Bloomberg added.

Cutting, gutting, altering, or otherwise tampering with “entitlements” (which also include federal and state programs paid for by workers via their paychecks) has been a core policy of the Republican Party for years.

Donald Trump repeatedly called for gutting Social Security and Medicare, a fact that appears to have been conveniently forgotten by some of his staunchest supporters.

Numerous House and Senate Republicans have either attacked or outright called for gutting, “sunsetting,” or otherwise dramatically altering Social Security and Medicare in the past year, including U.S. Senators Rick Scott (FL), Mike Lee (UT), Lindsey Graham (SC), Ted Cruz (TX), Ron Johnson (WI), Ted Budd (NC), and U.S. Reps. Rick Allen (GA), Mike Waltz (NC), Kevin Hern (OK), and others.

* * *

Howling mad hyena Marjorie “Q” Greene may have led the charge but she was far from the only culprit lying about the President of the United States in a nationally-televised speech that was seen in several parts of the world.

Here’s U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), once floated as a Trump Supreme Court nominee, “feigning outrage” at President Biden’s truthful claim, and a video of him calling to gut Social Security and Medicare. In fact, he says in the video the reason he was running for Senate was to pull up “by the roots” Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

And U.S. Senator Rick Scott, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), getting called out by Fox News for wanting to “sunset” Social Security and Medicare.

U.S. Rep. Rick Allen, Republican of Georgia [Marjorie Q’s seatmate], claiming people are telling him they “want to work longer,” as he says he wants to raise the retirement age, which would dramatically alter Social Security and Medicare.

Or an apparently younger [Coup plotter co-conspirator] U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme:

Center for American Progress Action’s research director, Will Ragland, in October pointed out Trump has repeatedly promised to gut Social Security and Medicare:

“Every single budget Trump proposed would’ve cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Social Security, Medicare, & Medicaid,” Ragland says.

[L]iterally dozens of Republicans back in October called for gutting, sunsetting, or killing Social Security and Medicare. This was the GOP playbook just a few months ago.

U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) in August saying he wants to “fix” “broken” Social Security and Medicare by turning them into “discretionary” spending:

U.S. Senator Ted Budd (R-NC), as a candidate, agreed with the “major points’ of Sen. Rick Scott’s 11-point plan which included sunsetting all federal programs, which would include Social Security and Medicare. (Sen. Scott just hours ago “doubled down” on his call to do just that.)

U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz (R-NC) just one month ago called for “big reforms,” and said: “if we really want to talk about the debt and spending, it’s the entitlements program.”

Many of those who have been trying to gut Social Security belong to the far-right Republican Study Committee.

Last summer NBC News reported: “The Republican Study Committee, a large group of House conservatives, proposed a budget in June that would incrementally raise the retirement age to collect Social Security, based on changing life spans, and lower benefits over the long term by using a new formula.”

So yes, Republicans have wanted to gut the entitlement programs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid since the time that the programs were first enacted, and they regularly lie about their intentions. They are not entitled to any assumption of good faith.  They mean to do harm to working Americans who rely on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Don’t let anyone tell you any differently. The historical record is clear, and so are the facts, lazy fact checkers.

President Biden set a trap for the howling mad hyenas of the MAGA Fascist caucus, and the performance politics trolls took the bait. Biden got Republicans to stand up and cheer to taking Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid off the table in budget negotiations, which took away Traitor Kevin McCarthy’s biggest chips in negotiations over the federal debt ceiling. The video will be used in ads for the next two years.

President Biden said he did not want “to name names” during his SOTU address, but in a well planned strategic follow-up to his SOTU Address, he went to Wisconsin and Florida the following days to name names. Biden names Republicans seeking changes to Medicare, Social Security:

In his State of the Union address, Biden said some — but not all — Republicans want to target programs such as Social Security and Medicare, drawing jeers and catcalls from certain members of the GOP caucus.

On Wednesday, the president used his speech at a labor training center in Wisconsin to identify the Republicans he was talking about Tuesday night, reading direct comments the lawmakers have made when proposing changes.

“When I raised the plans of some of their members in their caucus to cut Social Security … Marjorie Taylor Greene and others stood up and said: ‘Liar, liar,’” Biden said. “Well, guess what? … I [will] remind you that Rick Scott from Florida, the guy who ran a U.S. Senate campaign, has a plan. I got his brochure right here!”

Biden was referring to Scott’s plan that would require all legislation — including that relating to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare — to be “sunset,” which would require votes every five years to continue them.

Speaking in DeForest, Wis., the president also noted that one of the state’s own senators, Republican Ron Johnson, also has expressed support for targeting the two programs in a budget-cutting move.

Johnson, who won a hard-fought reelection race in November against the state’s former lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes, suggested last August that Social Security and Medicare be eliminated as federal entitlement programs, saying the programs should instead become programs approved by Congress annually as discretionary spending.

Note: US Sen. Ron Johnson stands by Medicare, Social Security remarks after being called out by President Joe Biden:

A day after he was called out by President Joe Biden, Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson reiterated his support for taking annual votes on funding Medicare and Social Security, calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” in the process.

[T]he exchange between Biden and Republicans this week was reminiscent of one that took place last August during the final months of Johnson’s 2022 Senate campaign. Under federal law, Medicare and Social Security are known as “mandatory spending,” meaning their funding is automatically renewed each year. Johnson called for changing that, arguing their funding should be voted on each year by Congress along with the rest of the budget.

He re-upped that position in January as Republicans were sparring with Biden over raising the nation’s debt limit, telling reporters that when it comes to the budget, lawmakers should look at “everything, every year.”

In a statement to Fascist Propaganda Fox News, Johnson accused Biden of lying about him. But in an interview with WISN-AM in Milwaukee Thursday morning, Johnson stood by his plan, saying it was time to change the way Medicare and Social Security are funded.

“We’ve got to put everything on-budget so we’re forced to prioritize spending,” Johnson said. “That doesn’t mean putting on the chopping block. That doesn’t mean cutting Social Security. But it does mean prioritizing.”

Johnson also said the current structure of Social Security is unsustainable.

“It’s a legal Ponzi scheme,” Johnson said, echoing an argument he first made in his 2010 Senate campaign, one he’s repeated during his dozen years in office.

Julia Azari, a professor of political science at Marquette University, said Biden’s decision to attack Johnson and other Republicans on Medicare and Social Security now is partly due to the ongoing debt ceiling debate. She said it’s a different approach to the one former President Barack Obama took when he largely negotiated with Republicans over the debt ceiling.

“Biden seems to do better when he is juxtaposed against the other party,” Azari said. “On his own, it seems like he’s kind of not the most exciting politician. In that sort of back and forth and drawing that contrast on popular issues? That’s where he finds his political bread and butter.”

Azari said there’s an added benefit to the president when it comes to talking about Medicare and Social Security since some Republicans — like Johnson — are outspoken about the need to consider everything when balancing the budget, while other Republicans are adamant that entitlement spending shouldn’t be touched.

“Biden is playing politics in a fairly likely to be effective playbook,” Azari said. “You take the issues that unify your party and divide the other party.”





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2 thoughts on “President Biden Rope-A-Doped The Howling Mad Hyenas of the MAGA Fascist Caucus in his SOTU Address”

  1. Ironically I hear the refrain from old MAGAs that they paid into those and they sure as hell cant be cut
    Rather, I suggest we need to get more revenue, not fewer benefits. Why should the taxpayers subsidize business losses and all the nonsensical accounting tricks to achieve them? Why are taxpayers subsidizing the three martini lunches again? Why is working person wage income taxed at a different rate than investment income? Income is income. Why doesnt investment income pay social security? Even without an employer match, taxing investment income for SS is a plus. There should be no income limit for SS tax, regardless of source. Social security and Medicare have always been opposed by Repubs. Ronald Reagan’s famous ad, equating Medicare with the destruction of the great American health care system, is infamous. The conserves even opposed the post war GI bill for education saying it was going to water down higher education.

  2. If they are so anxious to cut spending, the place to do it is in all the tax spending they have been doing over the years — all the gifts of major tax cuts to the wealthy and to big corporations should be revoked and thus the deficit can be reduced without touching entitlements. Not that this has anything to do with raising the debt ceiling; none of the conditions they are trying to place on that action are relevant to it.

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