President Biden scored an early political point this month in his fight with congressional Republicans over taxes, spending and raising the federal debt limit: He forced Republican leaders to profess, repeatedly, that they will not seek cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
In the process, Mr. Biden has effectively steered a debate about fiscal responsibility away from two cherished safety-net programs for seniors, just as those plans are poised for a decade of rapid spending growth.
New forecasts from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, released on Wednesday, showed Medicare and Social Security spending growth rapidly outpacing the growth in federal tax revenues over the next 10 years. That is the product of a wave of baby boomers reaching retirement age and beginning to tap the programs, which provide guaranteed income and health insurance from the time benefits are claimed until death.
Those retirees are an electoral force. In refusing to touch so-called entitlement programs, Mr. Biden was appealing to seniors, along with generations of future retirees, when he used his State of the Union address and subsequent speeches this month to amplify attacks on Republican plans to reduce future spending on Social Security and Medicare or potentially sunset the programs entirely.
A healthy country would tackle this program head on and make the necessary adjustments and compromises to do so 4/4 https://t.co/bjLzztGF23 #socialsecurity #medicare #unfundedliabilities #usa #Stewardship all we are doing now is making things worse for those who come after us
— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 16, 2023