Focused on 2024, Biden sees opportunity in GOP-held Florida
With an eye toward the 2024 campaign, President Joe Biden on Thursday ventured to Florida, a state defined by its growing retiree population and status as the unofficial headquarters of the modern-day Republican Party.
The president sees a chance to use Social Security and Medicare to drive a wedge between GOP lawmakers and their base of older voters who rely on these government programs for income and health insurance. Biden is trying to lay the groundwork for an expected reelection campaign announcement this spring.
White House aides have been using the votes and words of Republican lawmakers to make their case that Social Security and Medicare benefits are under threat, while GOP leaders say their statements are being mischaracterized.
“He’s going to call out these House Republicans and Senate Republicans who have continuously said over the years, and especially the last several months, that they want to cut those two key benefits,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One.
After delivering his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Biden on Wednesday went to Wisconsin, another political battleground, where he said he would block any attempts to slash Social Security and Medicare benefits.
“All of you have been paying into the system every single paycheck you’ve had since you started working,” Biden said. “These benefits belong to you, the American worker. You earned it. And I will not allow anyone to cut them. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever, period.”
Leading Republican lawmakers insist that spending cuts to Social Security and Medicare are off the table with regard to reaching a deal to increase the government’s legal borrowing authority. But enough prominent Republicans have broached the subject that Biden sees a political opportunity.
During the State of the Union address, GOP lawmakers jeered when Biden referenced a proposal by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., to require that the programs be reauthorized every five years. The president seized on the impromptu moment, urging Republicans and Democrats alike to pledge to avoid cuts to the income and health insurance programs.
“Let’s stand up for seniors,” Biden said as most of those in the chamber took to their feet to applaud, knowing the dangers of being on the wrong side of an aging electorate that values these programs.
To make their case, White House aides distributed handouts in Tampa summarizing Scott’s plan, highlighting the phrase where the senator wrote: “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.”
Scott said his policy ideas have been misrepresented by the president and that he only wants programs up for congressional renewal every five years, which he believes is different from spending cuts to Social Security or Medicare. “They lie about it,” Scott said in a written statement about how administration officials have described his plan.
“I am not for cutting Social Security and Medicare,” Scott said in a CNN interview hours before Biden’s trip. “We’ve got to preserve those benefits.”
It’s a delicate moment for Social Security and Medicare, programs that economists say will drive the national debt to unprecedented highs over the next few decades. The Social Security trust fund will be unable to pay full benefits starting in 2035, prompting some Republican lawmakers to say changes will have to be made to sustain payments.
But any proposed changes can come across as kryptonite to voters, who want their benefits preserved rather than cut. That’s especially true in Republican-held Florida, where Census figures show that nearly a third of adults are older than 62.