Made in America: Making America Grown from the Bottom up to the Middle Out and Lowering Prescription Drug Costs for Families and Working and Middle-class Families

Over the past nearly two years, we have made enormous progress. My administration, working with Democrats in Congress, is building an economy that grows from the bottom up and middle out.

The unemployment rate has not been this low in 50 years. We’ve created 10 million jobs, including almost 700,000 manufacturing jobs. On my watch, “Made in America” isn’t just a slogan, it’s a reality.

We have more work to do. Inflation is a global challenge because of the swine flu and the war between Russia and Ukraine. I know a lot of people have a job and are still struggling to pay for groceries, gas and rent. That’s why I’m so determined to lower costs for families.

I aim to reduce burdens on working and middle-class people by lowering the cost of everyday things they need for their families, such as health care premiums and prescription drugs. We passed the Inflation Reduction Act without a single Republican vote to lock in lower health care premiums for 13 million Americans and lower prescription drug prices for seniors.

And partly because of the actions we’ve taken – including a historic release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve – gas prices are decreasing. They’re down $1.20 since their peak this summer and just this week they fell another 10 cents. That’s adding up to real savings for families.

Republicans in Congress are doubling down on trickle-down economics that benefit the wealthy and corporations. They’ve laid their plan out very clearly. It increases your costs and makes inflation worse.

The administration gave Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices. We capped out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for seniors at $2,000 a year and also capped seniors monthly insulin payments. Big Pharma spent hundreds of millions of dollars to make sure Americans don’t save money on health care. They didn’t succeed.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/25/opinions/american-people-face-a-choice-joe-biden/index.html

Do We Live and Die in the Dream? The Case for Changing the Rules of Property Taxes: Campaigning for a Responsible Taxpayer’s Rights

Democrats are making sure the biggest corporations begin to pay their fair share in taxes. In 2020, 55 of the wealthiest corporations in America paid zero dollars in federal income tax. No longer. I was signed into law with a minimum tax. And, I’m keeping my campaign commitment: no one earning less than $400,000 a year will pay a single penny more in federal taxes.

In 2010, Republicans turned the tables, using what they described as “Medicare cuts” in the Affordable Care Act to sweep back to power in the House. There were reductions in the payments to providers, but the beneficiaries got extra benefits through the AHCA.

There is not a Republican party like your father’s that wants to ban abortion. If we don’t change the Congress, I will veto it immediately and codify it in January.

Democracy is being put to the test in America. We are learning what every generation has to learn: nothing about democracy is guaranteed. You have to defend it. Protect it. It’s up to you.

I’m absolutely confident that, just as they did in 2020, the American people will again vote in record numbers and make it clear that democracy is a value that both defines us and unites us as Americans.

Over the last few years, we’ve faced some of the most difficult challenges in our history, but we did not relent. I am very confident about our future. In 14 days, the American people will decide whether we keep moving forward or go backwards.

In the absence of a concrete plan, which Republicans have broadly said will focus on spending cuts, White House officials have pressed for the political upper hand in calling into question McCarthy’s commitment to leave Medicare and Social Security untouched given the position of some members in the conference.

McCarthy is set to meet with President Joe Biden on Wednesday in a face-to-face that has already been subject to positioning and political messaging, moves that both sides hope will shape the fight to raise the debt limit over the next few months. White House officials have said there won’t be negotiations on the matter, while the House Republicans have said it will be the beginning of debt ceiling talks.

The White House coordinated with the congressional Democrats to push the Republicans to make their proposal, even though they remained united in their opposition to negotiations.

White House Strategies to Propose House a Major Reduction of Social Security, Medicare, and the Baby Boom: The Case for Marty Walsh

Bates was referencing McCarthy’s appearance on CBS’ The Republican from California stated on “Face the Nation” that he wanted to find a way to lift the debt ceiling while controlling spending.

“What I think we need to do for people in my generation particularly, is start to restructure the program, in a way that’s gonna be financially sustainable, both Social Security and Medicare,” he added.

The pledge made by McCarthy gives a window into the complex political dynamics House Republicans face while still trying to come up with a proposal to put on the table.

White House officials wasted no time responding to House Republican preferences which they felt were both non-starters on the policy front and politically advantageous.

More broadly, there remain significant questions about whether House Republicans can find the necessary 218 votes for anything given the strident opposition held by some in the conference about raising the debt ceiling at all.

Still, the focus on Medicare and Social Security even as McCarthy has moved to take changes off the table underscores the view inside the White House of the political salience of the programs.

The White House sees the framing of “strengthening” the programs as a way to disguise their opposition to structural changes. Absent a clear House Republican proposal, that has become a central line of attack in a debate that is still in its early stages – with potentially dramatic consequences ahead.

Absent from the chamber, though, was Marty Walsh, the labor secretary who was chosen to stay away as a designated survivor in case of a catastrophe at the Capitol and is reported to be stepping down soon.

What the President wants to see in his next-doordoor campaign for reelection: Raising the retirement age, Social Security, and cutting benefits for the elderly

“I wanna see what the president offers,” Biden said in one video from 2005. Raising the cap, raising the retirement age for people who are now 30 years old, raising the tax on Social Security, and cutting benefits, it’s what I want to see. They’re all things that have to be discussed, quite frankly.”

Mr. Biden’s latest ideas, which he calls his “unity agenda,” were largely ignored by Republicans, but they are likely to attract bipartisan support. Among the initiatives were to address the opiate epidemic, enhance cancer research and treatment, and improve benefits for veterans.

As important as his program may be, the president also faced pressure to ensure a smooth performance in front of what was likely to be his largest television audience of the year. He would ask voters to keep the White House for him until he is 86 if he seeks re-election. Polls have shown that many Democrats are worried about his age and want to see a younger generation taking over in the party.

Ms. Sanders tracked him down at an early age. “At 40, I’m the youngest governor in the country. And at 80, he’s the oldest president in American history,” she said. She did not say if Mr. Trump would be nominated for a third time.

As Biden moves into his campaign for reelection, he sees Republicans threatening the two giant entitlement programs for the elderly as a good way to position himself.

President Biden made an unofficial pitch for reelection in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, promising “Let’s finish the job” and noting the economic progress he had made.

His first address to Congress since the Republicans took control of the House was in November. With newly-elected GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy sitting over his shoulder, Biden urged Congress to pass a lengthy list of his unfinished priorities.

“There’s so much more to do,” he said, calling on lawmakers to pass policing reform and immigration legislation; codify abortion rights, and cap the price of insulin for all at $35 a month.

Biden’s State of the Union Address and the Problem of Tyre’s Memphis, Tennessee, Police Stationary During the First Day of PBS News Hour

Some surveys show Democrats want someone else to run in favor of Biden because he’s older, though no one can say who the alternative should be.

Biden will likely have the largest television audience of the year when he gives the State of the Union address, which he will use to draw a contrast with Republicans.

“Let’s commit here tonight that the full faith and credit of the United States of America will never ever be questioned,” the president said, repeating his call for Congress to raise the debt ceiling with no preconditions.

“When I pointed out that some Republicans are talking about eliminating Medicare, they said, ‘No, no, no,’ ” Biden said in an interview on PBS NewsHour the day after the State of the Union address. I said, “Oh, OK.” That means all of you are for supporting Medicare? Everyone raises their hand. They all raised their hand. So guess what? We accomplished something. Unless they break their word. There will be no cuts in Medicare and Social Security.

The George Floyd Policing Act needs to be passed by congress in order to help the family of 29-year-old man who was beaten to death by Memphis police.

“What happened to Tyre in Memphis happens too often, we have to do better” Biden said, nodding to Tyre’s mother and stepfather, who were in the chamber as special guests.

The Big Lie that it’s been stolen: Why the U.S. Senate is going to be bigger than the Democrats, and why Mr. Biden hasn’t

Many Democratic congressional candidates won in the 2020 election by using Mr. Trump and the Big Lie that it had been stolen. The White House adviser said that Mr. Biden has been unable to campaign because he had no well-defined opponent.

He said that he helped bring in a historic amount of legislation that included 300 bipartisan laws around issues such as improving infrastructure, boosting domestic semiconductor manufacturing, and improving veterans benefits.

“Already, we’ve funded over 20,000 projects, including major airports from Boston to Atlanta to Portland,” he said. “And folks, we’re just getting started.”

He also reiterated his optimism in finding issues where members of both parties could find common ground, such as supporting veterans, ending cancer, and beating the opioid epidemic.

“To my Republican friends, if we could work together in the last Congress, there is no reason we can’t work together and find consensus in this Congress as well,” Biden said.

Biden showed a clear contrast with right-wing House Republicans who couldn’t help themselves,hectoring them even though Kevin McCarthy explicitly told them not to do so.

The president didn’t call for a whole lot of new policy initiatives from the new Congress — beyond, for example, ending what he called “junk fees” in travel, entertainment and credit cards. He is likely to campaign on what he has already done and draw a big-picture distinction between his vision for America and the Republicans’.

The willingness and ability to spar with Republicans, as well as the fact that he depicted them not as normal but extreme, are likely to make Democrats comfortable.

Medicare and Social Security was the best example of this. He deftly riled up House Republicans, accusing some of wanting to cut the popular entitlements. He was careful to note that some Republicans want to end Medicare and Social Security every five years.

The exchange took the lid off any comity that existed earlier in the evening. Republicans shouted and heckled as they accused Biden of being a liar and others yelled “It’s your fault!” Biden decried the use of drugs.

McCarthy, who took 15 rounds to win his speakership because of far-right rejection and his small majority, could clearly be seen shushing his conference at least three times. It was the look that Biden and the Democrats wanted to show off for what will be the largest TV audience the president will speak to this year.

Americans are fond of an underdog story with some nationalism. Right- and left-wing populism has become the hot ticket in politics. Both Biden and former President Donald Trump have populism at their core — the little guy vs. the people in power. They’re modern-day Howard Beales, mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

Biden went after corporate stock buybacks, oil and gas company profits, Big Pharma, “wealthy tax cheats” and billionaires (hello, Sen. Bernie Sanders).

It was a heavy dose of populism with policies that are popular. He even made news, saying that he is going to “require all construction materials used in federal infrastructure projects to be made in America.”

State of the Union: What Will We Do in the United States? When Will the U.S. Embassy Rejoin Ukraine? A Tribute to Biden

Biden said that he would make no apologies for investing to make America strong. “Investing in American innovation, in industries that will define the future, and that China’s government is intent on dominating.”

There wasn’t much more than about 200 words of the speech that was given on the subject of what has evolved into a major threat to America.

On Ukraine, Biden noted the presence of Ukraine’s ambassador and touted what the U.S. has done for the country over the past year of its war with Russia.

There wasn’t much on either country beyond that. That shows that Biden’s reelection campaign is going to be about bread-and-butter issues.

It’s a difficult line to walk, but it’s what Biden has tried to do. Republicans — like Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who delivered the GOP response — accuse Biden of being taken over by a “woke mob.”

“After years of Democrat attacks on law enforcement and calls to ‘Defund the Police,’ violent criminals roam free, while law-abiding families live in fear,” she said.

“It’s up to all of us,” Biden continued. “We all want the same thing — neighborhoods free of violence, law enforcement who earn the community’s trust, our children to come home safely, equal protection under the law. That’s the covenant we have with each other. And we know police officers put their lives on the line every day, and we ask them to do too much.”

Biden told the group of workers at the LiUNA facility that he reported on the State of the Union and that it was strong.

“There’s a senator named Mike Lee who was also yelling, ‘Liar, liar, house on fire’ kind of stuff last night. You know,… He said a video of him saying it will be his goal to phase out Social Security was shown last night.

A Conversation with Biden about the House-Republican Conversion of the ‘Maga Republicans’ and the Debt Problem in the House of Representatives

PBS NewsHour asked Biden if he was anticipating a reaction like the one he got in the House chamber.

“From the folks that did it, I was,” Biden said. “The vast of majority of Republicans weren’t that way, but you know, there’s still a significant element of what I call the ‘MAGA Republicans.’”

As for last night’s “conversion” of some Republicans, he offered skepticism during his speech: “I sure hope that’s true. I will believe it when they show me their budget with the cuts they are proposing. But looks like we negotiated a deal last night on the floor of the House of Representatives.”

Earlier in the speech, Biden attempted to make a broader argument for working together with GOP lawmakers, touting the successes of his first two years in office.

“People sent us a clear message: Fighting for the sake of fighting gets us nowhere. He said that he was getting things done and then began to make arguments against his Republican colleagues.

And he again called on Congress to raise the nation’s debt limit during his earlier remarks, warning against the “chaos” he said Republicans are “suggesting.”

Biden said junk fees matter to most people like the home he grew up in and he fired back at the television commentator that said it was not important to the wealthy people. They add hundreds of dollars a month to make it hard to pay bills or afford a family trip. I know how unfair it feels when a company overcharges you and think they can get away with it.”

The Sentiment of Paul DeSantis to the House of Representatives on Tuesday night: What he has to do for him and what he wants to do

Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to Mr. Biden and one of his top communications advisers, said the scrimmage between the president and House Republicans on Tuesday night should provide Americans with a more visceral understanding of what the president has been talking about.

“Clearly, having the House Republican caucus behaving the way they are, and are signaling strongly they will continue to behave, is going to give the president an easy contrast,” she said. “What the House Republican caucus is doing for him is giving him a way to draw a contrast between what he is for — what he’s trying to get done, and who he’s trying to get it done for — with the House Republicans.”

How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on the reporters to be free of bias. Times staff members are not allowed to support candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.

Should he announce that he is going to run for president, Democrats will use his comments against him as a reason to vote in favor of resolutions that privatized Medicare and raised the retirement age.

“I support what Ryan is trying to do in terms of reforming entitlements. It’s not a voucher, it’s premium support,” he was quoted as saying. “You get a plan and can supplement it with your own income.”

“I would embrace proposals like [Rep.] Paul Ryan offered, and other people have offered, that are going to provide some market forces in there, more consumer choice, and make it so that it’s not just basically a system that’s just going to be bankrupt when you have new people coming into it,” DeSantis told the St. Augustine Record in a video that was posted on YouTube at the time.

At the time, DeSantis was a Tea Party fiscal conservative, running with the backing of conservative groups like Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, FreedomWorks, the Club for Growth, and the Madison Project.

DeSantis has yet to announce he if he running for president in 2024, nor has he spoken publicly about his position on the entitlement programs as the governor or Florida, preferring to focus on culture war issues.

The president was in Florida on Thursday to support protecting Medicare and Social Security, a program that is used more by the state’s population than any other. A senior White House advisor told CNN that the Florida visit will allow Biden to take the fight to DeSantis and Sen. Rick Scott, the architect of a plan that would sunset all federal legislation – including Social Security and Medicare – every five years and require Congress to pass them again.

“I think people who are low income will probably be given coverage that is similar to what they have now,” he said in the interview with the St. Augustine Record. I think people like me, who have been more successful, are not going to have to pay more. I will have premium support that’s going to guarantee me a certain amount of coverage.”

If you want something over and above that, then I don’t believe it should be imposed on the taxpayers. That makes sense to me.

What Biden and the Senate Reply to Scott’s Inflation Reduction Plan Shouldn’t Be Done About Social Security and Medicare

After getting elected, one of DeSantis’ first interviews as a newly sworn-in member was on CNN on January 4, 2013, where he said he hoped Congress would take on restructuring entitlements when asked about Social Security and Medicare.

In speeches and musings on social media this week, the White House has pointed out the proposal of Sen. Rick Scott of Florida and other Republican senators that would affect the retirement and health care programs.

The videos are authentic, but Biden didn’t tell his Wednesday speech audience they are from more than a dozen years ago when Lee was running for the Senate. At the same 2010 event Lee added that current Medicare beneficiaries should have their benefits left untouched and those who will retire in the next few years, Biden didn’t mention that.

The plan’s official text, which remains online on a dedicated website, says “all federal legislation,” period, should be sunset in five years – not all recent legislation, all crazy legislation or all legislation except for the laws that created Social Security and Medicare. When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell rejected Scott’s plan last year, McConnell too said that the plan “sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years.”

Scott, in turn, has tossed a false claim into the debate with Biden this week by repeatedly accusing the president of having cut billions from Medicare in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act. The act allowed the government and seniors to spend less money on prescription drugs in order to increase the amount of money spent on Medicare benefits. The claim of a Medicare cut was repeatedly debunked last year, when Scott and a Republican campaign organization he chaired used it during the midterm elections.

This week and in numerous previous speeches, Biden has castigated Johnson for saying last year that Medicare and Social Security should be treated as discretionary spending, which Congress has to approve every year, rather than as permanent entitlements.

Without Johnson specifying how he wants to fix or save the program, it is hard to fact-check this particular dispute. His office did not respond to a CNN request for comment.

White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates noted in an email to reporters on Thursday that, though Johnson accused Biden this week of lying about his stance on Social Security, Johnson also said in interviews this week that Social Security is a “legal Ponzi scheme” and that “Social Security might be in a more stable position for younger workers” if the government had proceeded with Republican President George W. Bush’s controversial and eventually abandoned proposal in the mid-2000s to allow workers born after 1949 to divert a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes into private accounts in which they could buy into the stock market and make other investments.

Sen. Mike Scott’s “Summary of the War”: Addressing the Biden-Carlson Problem with Medicare, Social Security and Medicare

The nation’s debt ceiling has to be raised or the country will default. GOP has pushed for spending cuts since the rise of the Tea Party. Speaker Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have the ability to corral some of the more vocal right-wing members of his conference.

Scott said on CNN that Biden had a bill in 1975, and that it was a sunset bill. It requires every program to be looked at each and every four years, not just cost but worthiness.

[Republicans] all raised their hand. Guess what? We accomplished something. Unless they don’t keep their word. There are going to be no cuts in Medicare, Social Security.

How Republicans handle themselves in the next year could determine the depth of what kind of foil Biden has in this group during his expected run for president — as the fight for which party is most in touch with the American people plays out.

If Congress fails to act, Social Security and Medicare will be at risk according to South Dakota Republican Sen. Mike Rounds.

“In the next 11 years, we have to have a better plan in place than what we do today. We are going to see reductions of as much as 24% under existing circumstances. Rounds said that it was easier to fix it now because it would be five or six years from now.

Scott told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins last week that his proposal is intended to eliminate wasteful spending and help ensure the government can “figure out how to start living within our means.”

There are possibilities of long-term success that are not scaring people or damaging the system. But it requires management. And it requires actually looking at and making things better,” he said.

Delaying Social Security, Medicare, and the Rick Scott Plan: When Joe Biden and George W. Bush Almost Came to a Resolution

This time it’s Democrats accusing Republicans of wanting to maim the very popular federal health program that covers 64 million seniors and people with disabilities. In the past, Republicans have successfully pinned Democrats as the threat to Medicare.

The bomb that went off during the State of the Union speech by President Joe Biden had been on the move for a long time. Biden warned that he would veto any attempts to cut Social Security or Medicare. It was one of only three veto threats he made that night. He said during a trip to Florida that he knows a lot of Republicans wish to cut Medicare and Social Security. Well, let me say this: If that’s your dream, I’m your nightmare.”

“That’s not the Republican plan; that’s the Rick Scott plan,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on a Kentucky radio show Feb. 9, echoing his opposition to the plan last year.

George W. Bush made it his top priority to privatize Social Security during his second term. That proved to be unpopular. In the following midterm elections, Democrats won back the House for the first time since losing it in 1994.

There are many things Congress could do to delay the insolvency of Medicare and Social Security. Some are more controversial than others (raising the payroll tax that funds Medicare, for example), but none are beyond the steps previous Congresses have taken every time the programs have neared insolvency.

This would shift the risk of health inflation from the government to seniors. And while it clearly would benefit the taxpayer, it would disadvantage both providers and the people on Medicare.

Aside from the 2035 problem, Social Security is already on track to replace less pre-retirement income for today’s younger workers than for today’s retirees. The last major changes to the program were enacted in 1983. That legislation put in motion a gradual increase in the Full Retirement Age, or F.R.A. — the age when you qualify to receive 100 percent of your benefit. Before 1983, the F.R.A. was 65, but for everyone born in 1960 and later, it is 67. The increase in the F.R.A. equates to a cut in benefits.

Workers have responded, to some extent, by delaying their benefit claim. 31 percent of retired worker claims were made by people older than 62 in 2021, down from 60 percent in 1998, an analysis of data by Mr. Johnson shows. But 84 percent of workers had claimed benefits by age 66.

The latest version of the Social Security proposal by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts came this week with the assistance of Senator Bernard Singh of Vermont. It would extend solvency by 75 years, give nearly all beneficiaries an increase of $200 per month through a revision in the benefit formula and adopt a more generous annual cost-of-living increase. Current FICA tax rates are applied to incomes over $250,000, and there will be new taxes on investment income.

The increase in benefits would be 2 percent, and it would shift the annual cost-of-living increase to a more generous formula. Improved benefits for widows and widowers and a new minimum benefit level for low income seniors are included. It would give credits for people who take time out of the workforce to care for family members and increase their benefits.

For nearly 11 minutes during the debate in October 2012, moderator Martha Raddatz of ABC skillfully guided Biden and Ryan through a heated, but civil and substantive, discussion of Social Security and Medicare’s future. Ryan insisted that changes were needed to preserve the programs’ long-term viability and that current seniors and those near retirement would not see their benefits reduced.

The story is similar in congressional contests. In House elections, the exit polls found Republicans winning all seniors and older working adults comfortably in the 2014 and 2022 midterm campaigns and narrowly carrying them even in 2018 when Democrats romped overall. In all three of those midterm congressional elections, Republicans carried about three-fifths of the near retirement White adults, while they also reached that elevated threshold among White seniors in both the 2014 and 2022 campaigns.

As I’ve written, the 80-year-old Biden, at his core, “remains something like a pre-1970s Democrat, who is most comfortable with a party focused less on cultural crusades than on delivering kitchen-table benefits to people who work with their hands.” In his economic plans he refers to his blue-collar plan to rebuild America as his main impulse, the plan would give generous incentives to revive domestic manufacturing and help workers with no college degrees. Social Security and Medicare, programs that are critical to economic security of financially vulnerable retirees, represent a logical bookend to Biden’s emphasis.

Matt Hogan, who helped conduct an analysis on the Social Security and Medicare debate, said that it helps etch out who Biden is on vs. who Republicans are on in a very effective way.

Politically, “Democrats have used Social Security and Medicare really a lot over the past two or three decades, maybe four decades,” said Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist Democratic group. “The payoff has been a lot less than Democrats have generally thought it would be.”

“The question I always ask myself in campaigns is ‘are you talking about something the other side doesn’t want to talk about?’” Stevens said. It is a good sign that they are not winning.

How the Second Half of the Democratic Demographic Puzzle will Fall: Social Security, Benefits, and Interests on the Nation’s Debt

There’s no doubt about the second half of that equation. According to polling, older Whites tend to be more receptive to hardline GOP messages about immigration, crime and race than younger people, for example 50% of older Whites agree that discrimination against White is wrong. Younger generations are more likely to lack a college degree or identify as Christians, attributes that generally predict sympathy for GOP cultural and racial arguments.

Over the next three decades, the Social Security system is expected to pay benefits $21 trillion greater than the trust fund will collect in payroll taxes. $48 trillion is projected to be missed by the Medicare system. These deficits are projected to, in turn, produce $47 trillion in interest payments to the national debt. That is a combined shortfall of $116 trillion, according to data from the Congressional Budget Office. (To inflation-adjust these figures, trim by roughly one-third.)

The president’s implication that full benefits can be paid without raising taxes for 98 percent of families has no basis in mathematical reality. Imagine that Congress let the Trump tax cuts expire, applied Social Security taxes to all wages, doubled the top two tax brackets to 70 and 74 percent, hiked investment taxes, imposed Senator Bernie Sanders’ 8 percent wealth tax on assets over $10 billion and 77 percent estate tax on estates valued at more than $1 billion, and raised the corporate tax rate back to 35 percent. America would face one of the highest wealth, estate and corporate tax rates in the developed world with the combined federal income, state and payroll marginal tax rates.

In an exchange, Biden was against plans by Bush to partially privatize Social Security and was willing to consider cutting benefits to ensure its solvency.

To solve this, Biden proposed tying Social Security to actuarial tables on life expectancy – something CNN’s KFile found he proposed on multiple occasions in the 1980s.

Biden once boasted that he was the first person to introduce a bill to require all federal programs be reauthorized or cease to be funded – including Medicare and Social Security.

“I introduced the Senate’s first ever free-standing sunset bill in 1975,” Biden wrote in an article in 1984 for the Syracuse Law Review, referencing a 1975 bill he introduced that did not include exemptions for Social Security and Medicare. The bill passed the Senate by a wide margin, but failed in the House.

Biden bragged about his efforts at debates in his campaign for reelection in 1978, when he was a critic of excessive federal spending.

Biden’s Inflationary Cuts and Implications to Government and the Internal Revenue Code in the Context of Public Works Law and Social Law

“If the reason we have inflation is because of deficit spending, and the reason for that is because we’re spending more than we’re taking in, how can we not cut programs and still balance the budget?”

Biden’s bill applies all of the spending authorizations. It isn’t just the size of our budget that is significant, but the rate at which it is increasing as well. We cannot long continue such growth rates in expenditures.”

“The purpose is to force the agencies, at regular intervals, to justify their missions and functions before Congress. He wrote that it could give a tonic to keep agency actions in line with congressional intent.

“Approximately three months per year or every two years, until you reach you either between 68 and 70 depending on what the actuarial tables are at the time and what people’s life expectancy really are, but at least 68. If your benefits have been reduced and you want to retire at 62, you can change that to 65.