Sanders' Social Security 'adjustments' undercut Biden attack

DES MOINES, Iowa — As a congressman in the 1990s, Bernie Sanders expressed an openness to making "adjustments" to the tax and benefit structure of Social Security. He also praised an overhaul of the social safety net program signed into law by President Ronald Reagan that reduced benefits and increased taxes on working families.

Sanders' presidential campaign and allies have highlighted similar remarks by Joe Biden to attack the former vice president and make the explosive charge that Biden was an outspoken proponent of slashing the program.

With Iowa's first-in-thenation presidential caucuses less than a week away, Sanders' remarks from decades ago are surfacing as a counterpunch to the criticism of Biden, as the two top candidates in the Democratic race escalate a feud over the nation's most popular entitlement, an issue that has particular reach among older voters.

Sanders, a democratic socialist, is a favorite of progressives who admire him for his convictions and consistency on issues. But when it comes to Social Security, it appears that wasn't always the case.

In 1994, after Republicans took control of the House for the first time since the Eisenhower era, they brought a renewed focus on fiscal restraint and deficit reduction.

Biden and Sanders both bowed to those pressures in some respect.

Today, Social Security's long-term finances are sagging under the weight of the ballooning number of baby boomers who are collecting benefits. The options available to sustain the program's financing also remain the same: Benefits can be cut, taxes can be raised or a combination of the two can be enacted.

Sanders' allies have specifically highlighted Biden's past use of the term "adjustments" — a word they say was deployed as a euphemism for cuts.

Yet Sanders himself used the word in an election-year opinion article about Social Security that ran in The Burlington Free Press in 1996.