Before the crucial White House meeting, Biden sent a message to McCarthy: show me your plan

Made in America: Making the Most of the Great Walls, the Rich, the Bottom Up, the Middle & the Bottom Out of the Universe

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 is 3.5% – a 50-year low. We have created 10 million jobs. On my watch, “Made in America” isn’t just a slogan, it’s a reality.

We have more work to do. Inflation – driven by the pandemic and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine – is a global challenge. Many people with a job are still struggling to pay for food, gas and rent. That’s why I’m so determined to lower costs for families.

Making it easier for hard-working Americans to get by is what we need to do. I took action to alleviate the burden of student debt for families that have already recovered from the Swine Flu. I will never apologize for helping the middle-class as they recover from the Pandemic. The same Republicans officials who voted for a tax handout to the wealthiest people in the world should not be doing it again.

The actions we have taken are partially to blame for the decrease in gas prices. Since they peaked in the summer, they have fallen another 10 cents. That’s adding up to real savings for families.

Republicans in Congress are doubling down on mega, MAGA trickle-down economics that benefit the wealthy and big corporations. They have clearly laid out their plan. It would raise your costs and make inflation worse.

The government gave Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices. We capped out-of-pocket prescription drug costs at $2,000 a year for seniors and capped seniors’ monthly insulin payments at $35 a month. Hundreds of million of dollars were spent by pharma and lobbyists trying to stop health care savings for Americans. They didn’t succeed.

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

The Right Votes: Voting for the Right People, and Protecting Democracy. The Case for President Donald J. Roev. Wade

The Democrats want the large corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. In 2020, 55 of the wealthiest corporations in America paid zero dollars in federal income tax. No longer. A minimum tax has been signed into law. I made a promise during my campaign and I will keep it: no one earning less than $400,000 a year will have to pay more federal taxes.

With the aid of the Affordable Care Act, Republicans regained control of the House in 2010. The reductions in payments were mostly to providers and not beneficiaries.

This is not the Republican Party of your father, who always favored a national 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.

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. Choose it.

I am confident that the American people will vote in record numbers again, and that they will make a point of how important democracy is to 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’ve never been more certain about our future. The American people will decide between going forward or backwards in 14 days.

How will Congress try to get Social Security and Medicare off the table? Views from the White House: Taking the Debt Ceiling Off the Table

McCarthy said he wanted to take Social Security and Medicare off the table, but also brought up a wide range of House GOP policies laid out before the elections that gave him a narrow majority.

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 been steadfast that there will be no negotiations on the matter while House Republicans have framed Wednesday’s meeting as the beginning of debt ceiling talks.

The White House and congressional Democrats have advocated forcing Republicans to put a proposal on the table, even though they insist there will be no negotiations on the matter.

Bates was referencing McCarthy’s appearance on CBS’ 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.

“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.

As House Republicans try to coalesce around a proposal to put on the table while still pressing for negotiations, McCarthy’s pledge provides a snapshot of the complex political dynamics that they are confronted with.

White House officials have closely monitored – and wasted no time responding – to House Republican preferences they see as 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.

The White House sees Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid but doesn’t see it – his State of the Union speech on Tuesday night

The White House sees the political salience of Medicare and Social Security even though McCarthy has taken changes off the table.

A White House official points to the framing of’strengthening’ the programs as a way of saying they don’t like 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.

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Biden touted the economic progress and legislative achievements made under his watch, repeatedly saying “Let’s finish the job” – a refrain likely to be heard as his unofficial pitch for reelection.

It was his first appearance in Congress since the Republicans took control of the House. 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, 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’s expected to make an announcement soon.

The State of the Union address is likely to be Biden’s largest television audience of the year, and he used it in part to draw a contrast with Republicans on a number of issues – including raising the debt ceiling.

The president said the nation’s full faith and credit would never ever be questioned after he called for Congress to raise the debt ceiling.

“So now, folks, as we all seem to agree, social security and Medicare is off the books now,” Biden said after his exchange with some Republicans in the audience. “We got unanimity” he said with glee.

Biden’s Vision for the United States: How he’s been during his first two years in office, and what he wants from the next Congress

Biden also stressed the urgency for Congress to pass the George Floyd Policing Act after 29-year-old Tyre Nichols was beaten to death last month by Memphis police.

The mother and father of the man who was murdered in Memphis were in the room as special guests and Biden said that they needed to do better.

Biden’s approval ratings have remained stubbornly underwater since August 2021 and surveys show even some Democrats would prefer an alternative presidential nominee. A majority of Americans think Biden has not accomplished as much as he could during his first two years in office.

And he pointed out that he’s helped usher in a historic amount of legislation – including 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.

He struck notes of his traditional unity message, pledging to work with the new Republican House leadership and touting his legislative accomplishments in the past year, but Biden also laid out an Average Joe America vision for 2024 full of poll-tested, middle-of-the-road issues, as well as a healthy dose of left-wing populism.

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. He will campaign on what he’s already done, and draw a big picture distinction between his vision for America and Republicans’.

He showed the ability to spar and portray Republicans as extreme, which is likely to make Democrats comfortable.

Medicare and Social Security was the best example of this. He went after some House Republicans for wanting to cut popular entitlements. He was careful in that section to note that “some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset every five years.”

The Republicans accused Biden of deceiving the public. Here is a fact-check of the exchanges.

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 is precisely the look Biden and the Democrats want to show off for what will probably be the largest television audience that the president will speak to this year.

Americans love an underdog story, especially when mixed with a dose of 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 billionaires, Big Pharmaceutical and corporate stock buybacks.

It was a heavy dose of left-wing populism with policies that are actually quite 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.”

The State of the Union: When the U.S. Turns Back Towards the Security and Security Goals of the 2022 Midterm Election

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

There was less than 200 words of the speech devoted to what is arguably one of America’s top geopolitical threats.

The presence of the Ukrainian ambassador in the United States was noted by Biden, as well as what the US has done for the country over the past year.

Outside of that, there was not much on either country. It is clear that Biden’s reelection campaign is going to be focused on domestic issues.

It’s a tough line to walk, but it’s one Biden has continuously tried to. Republicans like Huckabee claim that Biden was taken over by a “woke mob”.

“After years of 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 said. We want the same thing as the community: neighborhoods free of violence, law enforcement who earn the Community’s trust, and our children to come home safe and sound. That’s the covenant we have with each other in America. And we know police officers put their lives on the line every day, and 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.

The State of the Union was reported by Biden last night to the room of union workers, who gathered at a LiUNA training facility in DeForest, Wisconsin.

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 in Tuesday’s speech. The argument highlighted Biden’s attempts to shift his message away from the “extreme MAGA” and “mega-MAGA” talking points of the 2022 midterm election.

“The Democrats have been accusing me, since the first time I ran for office, of wanting to end Social Security, wanting to cut it, wanting to gut it, wanting to – I’ve never said that. He said this week in a radio interview that he wanted to save it.

What the GOP is telling you about Donald J. Biden, the House of Representatives, and his campaign to stop the GOP from talking about junk fees

Shortly after Biden’s remarks near Madison, PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff asked him if he was expecting the kind of reaction he got in the House chamber.

Biden said, “From the people that did it, I was.” “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 got a deal done on the House floor last night.

Biden tried to make a bigger case for working with GOP lawmakers, citing the successes of his first two years in office.

People said to us that fighting for the sake of fighting gets us nowhere. He said we were getting things done and then went on to make clear arguments against his Republican colleagues.

He warned against the chaos that will result if Congress fails to raise the nation’s debt limit.

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. They make it harder to pay bills or afford family outings by adding hundreds of dollars a month. I know how unfair it feels when a company overcharges you and think they can get away with it.”

Because Democrats held both houses of Congress, it was difficult for Mr. Biden to make a political villain out of Donald J. Trump. For most of his first year, Mr. Biden was more aligned with his own party than with the Republicans.

The scrimmage between the president and Republicans on Tuesday will help Americans understand what the president has been saying, said a senior adviser to Mr. Biden.

“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. The House Republican caucus is trying to give him a way to contrast what he is for with what the Republicans are trying to do for him.

Democracy without Medicare: What Do We Want to Make America Beautiful Without Medicare? An Empirical Study of the 2012 Campaign of Sen. Paul DeSantis

Times reporters cover politics. Our journalists are independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for 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.

A CNN KFile review of comments from DeSantis’ 2012 congressional campaign found he repeatedly said he supported plans to replace Medicare with a system in which the government paid for partial costs of private plans or a traditional Medicare plan. In one interview with a local newspaper, DeSantis said he supported “the same thing” for Social Security, citing the need for “market forces” to restructure the program.

The use of the Medicare cudgel likely reached its zenith in 2012, when Democrats took aim at Medicare privatization proposals offered by Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chair and Republican vice presidential candidate. That debate produced a controversial political ad, paid for by the progressive Agenda Project Action Fund and recalled by many in Washington, that showed a suited man in a red tie – presumably, Ryan – dumping a wheelchair-bound “granny” off a cliff as the words flashed, “Is America Beautiful without Medicare?”

I would support the ideas put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan and other people to make the system more consumer-friendly and give some market forces in there.

At the time, DeSantis was a Tea Party fiscal conservative, running with the backing of conservative groups.

If he were to run for president in 2024, DeSantis would not speak about his position on entitlement programs as the governor of Florida or focus on culture war issues.

In the speech he gave on Tuesday, the president mentioned a part of Scott’s plan that said federal legislation would end in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.” Biden said that Social Security and Medicare would be included in all federal legislation.

“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 that many people who have been more successful do not have to pay more. I will get premium support that will guarantee me some kind of coverage.

“If you want something over and above that, if you want a Cadillac plan or something, then I do think it should be driven by the consumer rather than imposed on the taxpayers,” he added. “And I just think that that makes sense.”

Demystifying President Biden’s Proposal for Restructuring Social Security and Medicare During the First 12 Years of the Senate Campaign

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.

Biden and his White House have criticized some Republican senators for their proposals that could affect 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. In response to Biden, Lee mentioned that the current Medicare beneficiaries should have their benefits left untouched and that those who will retire in the next few years need to as well.

Scott has said cutting the entitlement programs wasn’t his intent in the plan, called the charge “false” and a “lie” and accused Biden of having proposed similar things about federal programs in the past.

“The president ran on protecting Medicare and Social Security from cuts, and he reiterated that in the State of the Union,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre said this week. He’s been clear over the last couple of years. The 1974 bill is not part of the president’s agenda.

Biden has castigated Johnson several times for saying last year that Social Security should be treated as discretionary spending, which Congress must approve every year.

It is not possible to fact-check this particular dispute without Johnson specifying how he would fix the program. He did not respond to the 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.

Biden’s sunset bill: Why we need a better plan in the next eleven years, and how we can make sure we are living within our means

The nation’s debt ceiling needs to be raised by June or the county will default on its debt. Republicans, since the rise of the Tea Party, have pushed for spending cuts to offset those increases. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has shown a lack of ability to corral the more vocal right-wing members of his conference.

When he was a freshman senator, Scott said on CNN that Biden had a bill that was a sunset bill. “It says, it requires every program to be looked at freshly every four years, not just cost but worthiness.”

All of them raised their hand. So guess what? We accomplished something. Unless they break 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 does not act, Social Security and Medicare will be at risk, according to South Dakota Republican Sen. Mike Rounds.

The next 11 years will be important as we must have a better plan in place. We are going to see a reduction of as much as 24% in some kind of benefit under existing circumstances. It would be easier to fix it if we started talking right away because it would take five years or six years for it to be fixed.

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.”

“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.

Do Republicans Really Want to Cut Social Security, and their Dream is the Rick Scott Plan?” Joe Biden told the Florida Senate during his State of the Union

Why do politicians persistently wield Medicare, as well as Social Security, as weapons? Because history shows that works at the ballot box. Generally, the party accused of menacing the sacrosanct entitlements pays a price — although it’s the millions of beneficiaries relying on feuding lawmakers to keep the programs funded who stand to lose the most.

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. He made three veto threats that night. During a trip to Florida after the speech, he said it more forcefully: “I know a lot of Republicans, their dream is to cut Social Security and Medicare. Well, let me say this: If that’s your dream, I’m your nightmare.”

“That’s not the Republicans plan; that’s the Rick Scott plan,” McConnell said, repeating his opposition to the plan last year.

Bush made it a priority to partially privatize Social Security when he was in office. 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 steps Congress could take to delay the insolvency of Medicare. Every time the programs have close to insolvency, Congress has taken steps to ensure they stay solvent.

This would shift the risk of health inflation from the government to seniors. It would disadvantage the people on Medicare because it would benefit the taxpayer.