Biden says Republicans will purposely harm economic system to chop Social Safety

President Joe Biden has a brand new deal with the economic system and alleged Republican plans to destroy it, however his assault strains are an previous a part of the Democratic playbook.

Biden is saying that if Republicans win management of Congress, as polls recommend is more and more doubtless, they are going to attempt to lower Social Safety and Medicare. If he doesn’t go together with their plans, GOP lawmakers will tank the economic system by blocking an extension of the debt ceiling.

“They're coming after your Social Safety and Medicare,” Biden mentioned at a digital fundraiser for Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA). “They're saying Republicans have made it clear — they usually’ve mentioned it publicly — that in the event that they win management of the Congress, they'll shut down the federal government and refuse to pay America's payments for the primary time in historical past until I lower Social Safety and Medicare.”

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“They’re so decided to chop Social Safety and Medicare, they're keen to take down the American economic system over it as a result of that'd be the one factor to place us in a deep recession,” he continued.

Republican majorities intentionally damaging the economic system to enhance their odds within the subsequent presidential election is a well-liked speaking level on the Left.

“That is blindingly apparent however value stating time and again,” tweeted MSNBC host Chris Hayes. “A GOP [H]ouse majority would have each incentive to do no matter doable to make the US economic system worse within the run-up to 2024.”

It’s now change into the White Home’s official line. "They've additionally mentioned that if they do not get Medicare and Social Safety on the chopping block that they are going to maintain our debt hostage, which might spiral the economic system right into a downward flip," Biden’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, informed reporters Thursday. "That's the plan of the congressional Republicans. It is to make the economic system worse, not higher."

The White Home briefed reporters on Wednesday on the variations between Biden’s financial imaginative and prescient and the Republicans’, saying extending former President Donald Trump’s tax cuts would enhance the deficit and repealing the Inflation Discount Act would elevate prices. One official spoke of the “Republican plan to repeal this aid for households.”

On the White Home web site, you possibly can examine “congressional Republicans’ five-part plan to extend inflation and prices for American households.”

Biden has began referring to his insurance policies as “respiratory room” for folks enduring increased costs.

Nonetheless, the deal with entitlement applications is a well-recognized one for Democrats.

Democrats toppled the primary Republican Senate majority for the reason that Fifties by operating in opposition to a freeze in Social Safety cost-of-living changes.

Beneath former President Invoice Clinton in 1995, Democrats acquired again into the sport in opposition to new GOP congressional majorities by railing in opposition to their price range decreasing the speed of progress in Medicare spending. Spending fights led to authorities shutdowns. Clinton efficiently ran for reelection the next yr promising to guard Social Safety, Medicare, and Medicaid from Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Democrats rebuffed a Social Safety reform plan by freshly reelected President George W. Bush in 2005, which got here throughout a 10-seat GOP Senate majority. Bush mentioned he had earned political capital and supposed to spend it. The proposal wasn’t a very powerful cause Republicans misplaced management of Congress the next yr, nevertheless it was a Democratic speaking level nonetheless.

The price range blueprint pushed by eventual Home Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) sought to revamp Medicare. It turned a serious characteristic of Democratic campaigns, with advertisements portraying Ryan pushing wheelchair-bound grandmothers off a cliff.

It might be too late for Biden to achieve success within the midterm elections, with tiny Democratic congressional majorities on the road. However he can hope they work higher in opposition to Republican-run chambers of Congress in what's going to virtually instantly shift to the 2024 presidential race days after the mud settles.

Biden’s discuss of “mega-MAGA trickle-down economics” sounds as geared towards the subsequent election as this one.

“Let's be clear: This election is not a referendum,” Biden mentioned on the Cartwright fundraiser, a model of a line he's now utilizing typically on the stump. “It is a selection — a selection between two vastly completely different visions of America.”

Even when that doesn’t work this November, we're more likely to hear it once more over the subsequent two years.