Making America Great: Inflation, Medicare, Prescription Drug Prices, and Energy Efforts for Families and the Middle Class
We have made enormous progress over the past two years. My administration, working with Democrats in Congress, is building an economy that grows from the bottom up and middle out.
The unemployment rate is 50 years low. We have created more than 10 million jobs. On my watch, “Made in America” isn’t just a slogan, it’s a reality.
We have more to do. Inflation – driven by the pandemic and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine – is a global challenge. Many people have a job and are still struggling to make ends meet. It is why I want to lower costs for families.
I am working to make health care premiums, prescription drugs and energy bills less expensive for people who work and live in the middle class. 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. Since peaking this summer, they have fallen another 10 cents. That’s adding up to real savings for families.
GOP members of Congress are talking about trickle-down economics that benefit the wealthy and corporations. They’ve laid their plan out very clearly. It would increase your costs and make inflation worse.
Medicare is now able to negotiate lower drug prices. We put a cap on seniors’ out-of-pocket prescription drug costs at $2,000 a year and capped their monthlyinsulin payments at $35 a month. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent by Big Pharma and lobbyists to prevent health care savings for Americans. They failed.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/25/opinions/american-people-face-a-choice-joe-biden/index.html
The Fate of Democracy: The Campaign for a Fair Fair Fair-Tax State of the American Economy and the Rise and Fall of Social Security
Democrats want corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. 55 of the richest corporations in America paid zero federal income tax in 2020. No longer. A 15% minimum tax was signed into law by me. 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 1982, President Reagan’s first election, Democrats used threats of Republican Social Security cuts to win more than two dozen House seats. In 1996, President Bill Clinton won reelection in part by convincing voters that Republicans led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich wanted to privatize Medicare and Social Security.
There are many Republicans in Congress who want to pass a ban on abortion. I would veto it right away, and if we elect more Senate Democrats and keep the House, I’ll move to codify Roe v. Wade in January.
The fate of democracy is being decided in America. We are learning that democracy is not guaranteed and that is what every generation has to learn. You have to fight back. Protect it. Pick it.
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 more confident about the future than I have ever been. In 14 days, the American people will decide whether we keep moving forward or go backwards.
Dem Demographers: McCarthy vs. Biden, McCarthy, and the Phenomenology of Debt Ceiling Negotiations
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s position that cuts to Medicare and Social Security are not on the table in exchange for a debt ceiling increase has drawn skepticism from his primary negotiating partner: The White House.
McCarthy and Biden are scheduled to meet on Wednesday, and both sides believe the meeting will shape the fight to raise the debt limit over the next few months. House Republicans have framed the meeting on Wednesday as the start of debt ceiling talks while White House officials have said there will be no negotiations on the matter.
The White House and congressional Democrats are united in their opposition to any actual negotiations, so they have worked together to push Republicans to make their own proposal.
Bates was referencing McCarthy’s appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” where the California Republican said he wanted “to find a reasonable and responsible way that we can lift the debt ceiling, but take control of this runaway spending.”
McCarthy said that they only talk aboutStrengthening Medicare and Social Security in their Commitment to America. “I know the president doesn’t want to look at it, but we have to make sure we strengthen those.”
The political dynamics House Republicans face, as they press for negotiations while still working to coalesce around a proposal to put on the table, are provided by McCarthy’s pledge.
White House officials have monitored and responded to the House Republican preferences, which they see as non-starters on the policy front.
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.
Predictions for the Future: The Case of an African American Man and the Death of a Police Officer in Memphis, Tennessee (the State of the Union Address by Joseph E. Biden)
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 views theframing of’strengthening’ the programs as a way to hide 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.
President Biden said “Let’s finish the job” during his State of the Union speech Tuesday, making his unofficial pitch for reelection likely to be heard.
His first address to Congress since the Republicans took control was in late 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.
He wants lawmakers to pass immigration legislation, codify abortion rights, and limit the price of drugs to $35 a month.
Biden, the oldest president in U.S. history at 80 years old, has said it his intention to run again in the 2024 presidential election. He is scheduled to make an announcement in the near future.
Biden used the State of the Union address to draw a contrast with Republicans on a number of issues including raising the debt ceiling and was likely to be his largest television audience of the year.
“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. Is that a sign that you are all for supporting Medicare? Everybody raise your hand.’ They all had their hand up. Guess what? We accomplished something. They have a word with them. There are no cuts to Medicare or Social Security.
“It’s up to us,” Biden said when talking about how the case of an African American man who died following a traffic stop was dealt with by the Memphis police. Biden’s parents were present at the time. Nichols’ mother could at times be seen admonishing GOP members to stand at times.
Biden was nodding to the people who were in the room as special guests, such as the mother and stepfather of Tyre, who died in Memphis.
The Problem of Donald Biden with the Big Lie that the 2020 Election was Rigged: A Conversation with a White House Adviser
Many congressional candidates were able to win the elections by linking their opponents to Donald Trump and the Big Lie that the 2020 election had been rigged. According to a White House adviser, Mr. Biden has had trouble with having a well-defined opponent since the elections ended.
He pointed out that he has helped push in a historic amount of legislation 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. We’re just getting started.
He believes that members of the two parties could find common ground on issues like supporting veterans, helping cancer patients, and battling the opiate 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 used his speech to highlight his legislative achievements and pledges to work with the new Republican House leadership, but also laid out an Average Joe America vision of middle-of- the-road issues, as well as a message of unity.
And he showed a clear contrast between himself and right-wing House Republicans, who couldn’t help themselves, hectoring Biden repeatedly despite newly minted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy explicitly instructing them beforehand 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. It showed he’s gearing up for campaign mode and that he’s likely going to campaign on what he’s already done by drawing a big-picture distinction between his vision for America and Republicans’.
Some of what is likely to make Democrats comfortable is the pluck he showed — the willingness and ability to spar with Republicans and depict them not as normal, but extreme.
The best example of this was on Medicare and Social Security. He deftly riled up House Republicans, accusing some of wanting to cut the popular entitlements. He was careful in that section to say that some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to end every five years.
The Republican senators have responded forcefully, accusing Biden of deceiving the public about where they stand. Here is a fact-check of the exchanges.
McCarthy could be seen shushing his conference at least three times because he took 15 rounds to win the speakership. It’s the look Biden and the Democrats wanted to project for a big TV audience the president will speak to this year, ahead of his expected 2020 reelection announcement.
Americans love an underdog story, especially when mixed with a dose of nationalism. That’s especially true today with right- and left-wing populism clearly 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 left-wing populism with policies that are actually quite popular. He made news when he said he was going to require all construction materials used in federal infrastructure projects to be made in America.
“The State of the Union is Strong, It is Strong” Biden told a packed room at LiUNA in DeForest, Wisconsin
“I will make no apologies that we are investing to make America strong,” Biden said. In industries that will define the future, and that China is intent on dominating, it is important to invest in American innovation.
There wasn’t a lot more than 200 words of the speech that was devoted to the issue.
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.
But beyond that, there wasn’t much on either country. That clearly shows Biden’s reelection campaign is going to be focused on domestic, bread-and-butter issues.
It’s a tough line to walk, but it’s one Biden has continuously tried to. Republicans like Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee sanders say Biden was 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. Everyone wants a neighborhood free of violence, a law enforcement agency with the community’s trust, and equal protection under the law. That’s the covenant we have with each other in America. Police officers are put lives on the line every day, so we ask them to do too much.
Biden actually received bipartisan standing applause, and the way he talked about it was a stark distinction from Republicans’ caricature of Biden as beholden to the extreme left.
“Last night, I reported on the State of the Union: It is strong, it is strong,” Biden told the room of union workers at a LiUNA training facility in DeForest, Wisconsin, reiterating much of his economic messaging and highlighting key legislative accomplishments.
In his speech Tuesday, Biden made clear that he was willing to continue the fight as he hit the road, reigniting the social safety net argument with Republicans that sparked one of the most memorable moments. Biden tried to shift his message away from the talking points of the upcoming election, highlighted by the argument.
“There’s a senator named Mike Lee who was also yelling, ‘Liar, liar, house on fire’ kind of stuff last night. … They played last night, something I didn’t even know existed, a video of him saying, ‘I’m here right now to tell you one thing you’ve probably never heard from a politician: It’ll be my objective to phase out Social Security,’” he said.
Reply to the Associated Press (APBJC) Sen. Jonah Biden: Conversion of the ‘MAGA Republicans’
PBS NewsHour had a reporter ask if he was expecting the kind of reaction that 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’ll believe it when I see it when their budget’s laid down with the cuts they’re 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. We’re getting things done,” he said, before going on to draw clear arguments against his Republican colleagues.
He urged Congress to raise the debt limit during his speech, warning against the “chaos” he said Republicans were suggesting.
Biden also fired back at a television commentator he heard aboard Air Force One lamenting his focus on junk fees: “Junk fees may not matter to the wealthy people, but they matter of most folks like the home I grew up in. It can be harder to pay bills if you have to add hundreds of dollars a month. I know how unfair it feels when a company overcharges you and think they can get away with it.”
The Democrats had control of both houses of Congress when Mr. Biden defeated Mr. Trump. Mr. Biden had a tendency to fight with his own party when it came to Republicans, specifically Senators such as Joe Manchin III and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
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.
She said the House Republican caucus behavior is going to give the president an easy contrast. “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.”
Reply to the Comment by Paul Ryan on Reform of the Social Security and Medicare Programs During the 2016 State of the Union (after Jayden DeSantis)
The journalists of the Times cover politics. Our journalists are an independent pair of eyes. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. It also includes being a part of a march or rally in support of a political candidate or election cause.
Former President Donald Trump and Democrats have already signaled plans to weaponize DeSantis’ comments against him, should he announce for president, and subsequent votes in Congress for non-binding budget resolutions that privatized Medicare and raised the retirement age to 70.
I think Ryan is doing a good job with reform of entitlements. He was quoted as saying that it was premium support and not a voucher. You can make your own income if you get a plan.
I would accept the proposals like Paul Ryan that will give market forces and consumer choice to the system, so that it isn’t just going to be bankrupt.
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.
In case he decides to run for President in 2024, he hasn’t spoken about his position on the entitlement programs as the governor of Florida, preferring to focus on culture war issues.
In the State of the Union address on Tuesday and in speeches on Wednesday and Thursday, the president referred to a part of Scott’s plan that says, “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. Congress can pass a law again if it is worth keeping. Biden correctly claimed that all federal legislation would include Medicare and Social Security, which do not currently require congressional re-approval.
In the interview he said people who are low income will probably be given the same coverage as they now have. “I think people like me, who’ve been more successful, it’s not even that I will have to pay more. I will have premium support that’s going to guarantee me a certain amount of coverage.”
He said that if you want a Cadillac plan or something, it should be driven by the consumer rather than imposed on the taxpayers. I just think it makes sense.
Biden, Lee and Johnson: Restructuring Social Security and Medicare for the Prosperous Future of the Young Generation During His First State of the Union
In his first interview after being elected, he said he wanted Congress to restructure Social Security and Medicare for the sake of the younger generation.
In speeches and tweets this week, Biden and his White House have singled out particular Republican senators – notably including Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin – over proposals from those senators that could affect the retirement and health care programs.
The videos are authentic, though Biden didn’t tell his Wednesday speech audience in Wisconsin they are from more than 12 years ago – an event in 2010, when Lee was running for the Senate but before he was first elected. And as Lee noted in Wednesday tweets responding to Biden, Biden didn’t mention that Lee added at the same 2010 event that current Medicare beneficiaries should have their benefits “left untouched” and that “the next layer beneath them, those who will retire in the next few years, also probably have to be held harmless.”
Referencing his “spirited debate” with Republicans at the State of the Union, Biden called Scott’s proposal “outrageous” and vowed he would veto such a plan during a speech in Florida last week.
Medicare and Social Security are Discretary Spending: Biden, Andrew, Scott, Scott and the Democratic Causality Causal Debt Scenario
“cut” can be political. One stakeholder’s Medicare cut is another stakeholder’s benefit. Reducing payments to medical providers (or, more often, reducing the size of payment increases to doctors and hospitals) may reduce premiums for beneficiaries, whose payments are based on total costs of the Medicare program.. Meanwhile, raising premiums or cost sharing for beneficiaries is a benefit to all taxpayers, who help fund Medicare. Increasing available benefits helps doctors, hospitals and other health providers, as well as beneficiaries, but costs more for taxpayers. And on, and on.
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.
It is difficult to fact-check this issue without Johnson specifying what he wants to do. His office did not respond to a CNN request for comment.
Even though Biden was accused of lying this week about his views on Social Security, Andrew noted in his email that Johnson had said that the program might be in a bad shape.
If the country doesn’t raise the debt ceiling by June, the county will default on its debt. Republicans pushed for spending cuts to make up for the increases caused by the Tea Party. That is a looming fight, as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has shown little ability to corral some of the more vocal, right-wing members of his conference.
“In 1975, he has a bill, a sunset bill,” Scott said on CNN of Biden when he was a freshman senator. It requires each program to be looked at every four years, not just cost but worthiness.
What Happened to Medicare, Medicaid, and the South Dakota Senate? The Case for a Better Future: Senator Mike Rounds’s Proposal
All of the Republicans raised their hands. So guess what? We accomplished something. Unless they break their word. Medicare and Social Security will not be affected by any cuts.
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 doesn’t act soon, Social Security and Medicare may not be safe, according to Republican Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota.
“In the next 11 years, we have to have a better plan in place than what we do today. Or we’re going to see – under existing circumstances – some reductions of as much as 24% in some sort of a benefit. Speaking to CNN’s Jake Tapper, Rounds stated that it is easier to fix it now that it would be five or six years from now.
Last week, Scott told Kaitlan Collins his proposal is to eliminate wasteful spending and make the government figure out how to begin living within their means.
“We think that there are possibilities out there of long-term success without scaring people and without tearing apart the system and without reducing benefits. But it requires management. And it requires actually looking at and making things better,” he said.
What is Medicare? Biden’s Dream of Cutting Social Security and Medicare in the State of the Union: The Rick Scott Plan is a Reality for the Republicans
Democrats accuse the Republicans of wanting to kill the federal health program for people with disabilities. In the past, Republicans have successfully pinned Democrats as the threat to Medicare.
The political bomb that went off during President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech had been ticking for weeks. In his speech, Biden threatened to veto any Republican efforts to cut Social Security or Medicare. It was one of only three veto threats he made that night. He said it was a dream of the Republicans to cut Social Security and Medicare during a trip to Florida. I’m your nightmare, if that’s your dream.
“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.
At the beginning of his second term, in 2005, President George W. Bush made it his top priority to “partially privatize” Social Security. That proved singularly unpopular. In the following midterm elections, Democrats won back the House for the first time since losing it in 1994.
Medicare’s value as a political weapon is one of the reasons why efforts to come together to find a solution to the program’s financing problems don’t work. In the 1980s and 1990s Congress passed bills to keep the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund afloat when it was close to insolvency.
This would shift the risk of health inflation from the government to seniors. It wouldn’t benefit the taxpayer, but it would make providers and people on Medicare worse off.