Biden vs. Sanders on Social Security and Medicare
Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden have been trading barbs over Biden’s record on Social Security and Medicare. Sanders accuses Biden of saying “on many occasions we should cut Social Security,” and Biden accuses Sanders of lying and using a “doctored” video to mislead voters about his position.
Biden’s campaign has focused on a short video clip circulated by the Sanders campaign of a Biden speech in 2018 in which he appears to express praise for former House Speaker Paul Ryan’s tax plan passed during Trump’s presidency — words that the Biden campaign says were delivered sarcastically. Given the way certain phrases were delivered and a fuller context of Biden’s comments, it was misleading for a Sanders campaign staffer to claim that Biden said “‘Ryan was correct’ to go after Social Security & Medicare.”
However, other examples cited by the Sanders camp show that Biden has in the past been willing in budget negotiations with Republicans to at least consider things such as raising the age of eligibility or recalculating cost-of-living increases for these programs for the elderly. That’s short of saying “we should cut Social Security,” as Sanders put it, though Biden’s past comments have been criticized by some liberals who believe any cuts to the safety net programs are non-negotiable. Sanders views raising the age of eligibility as a cut.
That’s not what Biden is proposing now. In his 2020 bid, Biden has proposed a plan that would increase revenue for Social Security by eliminating the payroll tax cap and expand benefits for some of the oldest seniors.
“There will be no compromise on cutting Medicare and Social Security, period. That’s a promise,” Biden said at the 2020 Iowa Brown & Black Presidential Forum on Jan. 20, according to VICE News.
Sanders argues that position is at odds with Biden’s past positions. Biden has been in government a long time — he was elected to the Senate in 1972 — and so he has a long legislative record and numerous publicly documented positions on these programs. We’ll lay out some of
