Scott: Biden ‘Lied’ about GOP Wanting to Cut Social Security and Medicare

During his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Biden asserted that “some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset.” A chorus of GOP lawmakers, including Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.) are fiercely disputing the claim, pointing out that as a U.S. senator, Biden himself supported cuts in the social welfare programs.

On Wednesday, Scott joined “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” to discuss Biden’s remarks.

“What he said is a lie,” Scott made clear. “You can’t make this stuff up. I put out a plan (you can go to RescueAmerica.com) [that] says, ‘Look, let’s come up with ideas. How do we make this a better place? Let’s … promote families, promote God … make sure we respect human life. One section says we should sunset the laws and regulations unless we want to keep them. So [Biden] wants to put out there that we want to cut Medicare and Social Security, which is a lie.”

Scott went on to point out that as a senator, Biden advocated for cutting Social Security and Medicare himself.

“But guess what’s even better? He actually did a bill to sunset everything. Let me let me give you the quote of what he said: ‘When I argued that we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits. I meant every single solitary thing in the government.’ … So he might be a little bit of a hypocrite. And then, as you know, in September, he signed a bill to cut $280 billion out of Medicare, which will cut lifesaving drugs. So he might be a liar. He might be a hypocrite, but he’s one of those things. He could be clueless.”

Observers have pointed out that Biden has suggested making cuts to Social Security and Medicare on numerous occasions while in public office over a 40-year period.

“What he’s trying to do is just scare people,” Scott contended. He went on to assert that pursuing a balanced budget will be critical to saving programs like Social Security and Medicare from future insolvency.

“If we don’t balance our budget … if we don’t do anything, in 10 to 12 years, you’ll have over a 20% cut in Social Security. So if we just sit here and do what the Democrats want to do, just keep spending money, just augment a 20% cut. On top of that, we will run out of money. The bondholders are not going to lend us money.”

Scott continued, “We can balance this budget. … Biden could actually pay the interest without even any bills passing. But we’ve got a lot of ideas on how to do this. We’ve got to get our fiscal house in order and we’ve got to preserve Medicare and we’ve got to preserve Social Security, Medicaid, all these safety net programs that are important to people.”