• Thu. Mar 23rd, 2023

GOP appears to turn tables in Social Safety fight

ByEditor

Mar 17, 2023

“We’ll in no way get these applications reformed and saved with no presidential leadership,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) stated this week, arguing President Biden is “not carrying out something.”

 

The criticism comes as Republicans have been dialing up the stress on the White Home to do additional to address the funding threats facing Social Safety, with some needling Biden for not offering a strategy to shore up solvency for the system in his current fiscal 2024 spending budget request. 

 

In a pair of Senate hearings this week, Republicans grilled White Home officials about the absence of the strategy, though in search of to counter attacks doled out by their colleagues across the aisle who have accused the GOP of wanting to reduce Social Safety. 

 

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) broached the problem in a charged line of questioning to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for the duration of a Finance Committee hearing Thursday.

 

“Of the $four.five trillion in taxes he has proposed, not a dime is going to shore up Social Safety,” Cassidy stated, just before asking moments later “why does not the president care” about threats to the program’s funding.

 

Cassidy also stated a bipartisan group of senators involved in an work he is top to discover possible options to extend the lifetime of the system created many requests to meet with the president.

 

Though Yellen stated that the president “stands ready” to perform with Congress on the problem, Cassidy named the statement a “lie.”

 

“Because when a bipartisan group of senators has repeatedly requested to meet with him about Social, so that somebody who is a existing beneficiary will not see her added benefits reduce by 24 %, we have not heard something on our request,” he stated. 

 

“And we’ve created many requests to meet with the president,” Cassidy added.

 

Study additional on how the dynamic played out in hearings this week right here.