Mitch McConnell is siding with Joe Biden against Rick Scott over his plan to make Congress reauthorize Social Security and Medicare every five years.
McConnell came out yesterday criticizing Scott, saying his plan is NOT a Republican plan and he wants nothing to do with it.
Here’s more via Washington Post:
In recent days, President Biden has been hammering Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) for his plan that would require Congress to reauthorize even popular programs such as Social Security and Medicare every five years to keep them operating.
On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) joined in the criticism, suggesting that provisions in Scott’s plan could hurt him in his bid for reelection next year in Florida, a state with the greatest share of seniors in the nation.
“That’s not a Republican plan. That was the Rick Scott plan,” McConnell told longtime Kentucky radio host Terry Meiners when asked about the provision calling for the sunsetting of Social Security and Medicare every five years.
“The Republican plan, as I pointed out last fall, if we were to [become] the majority, there were no plans to raise taxes on half the American people or to sunset Medicare or Social Security,” McConnell said. “So it’s clearly the Rick Scott plan. It is not the Republican plan. And that’s the view of the speaker of the House as well.”
McConnell was alluding to another provision in Scott’s broader 12-point plan that would require all Americans to “pay some income tax to have skin in the game.” As Scott noted, about half of Americans currently pay no federal income tax. That proposal was dropped from a revised version of Scott’s plan.
McConnell sought to distance himself from Scott’s plan as soon as it was released last year, recognizing the political peril it presented for Republicans. His comments Thursday put him squarely with Biden and sent a clear message that GOP leadership wants no part of the proposal. Last month, former president Donald Trump — the only announced White House candidate — warned the GOP to avoid cuts to Medicare and Social Security.
McConnell claims that he’s not lashing out at Scott for his leadership challenge earlier this year. He says Scott’s plan is just a bad idea and suggested Scott might lose his seat over the plan in the next election cycle:
Scott, who presided over the National Republican Senatorial Committee during a disappointing midterm cycle for his party last year, subsequently sought to challenge McConnell for minority leader in the Senate and fell well short.
Asked Thursday if Scott’s leadership bid had anything to do with his views of Scott’s sunset plan, McConnell said that it “doesn’t have anything to do with that.”
“I mean, it’s just a bad idea,” McConnell said. “I think it will be a challenge for [Scott] to deal with this in his own reelection in Florida, a state with more elderly people than any state in America.”
It should be no surprise that Mitch McConnell would so willing throw Scott under the Biden bus.
As Sean Davis points out…
Nothing to see here. Just Mitch McConnell trashing Senate Republicans so he can help out Biden. https://t.co/B8J3sy4gM3
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) February 10, 2023
The truth is Medicare and Social Security are ponzi schemes and that needs to be dealt with. I know that both of these programs have been taken off the table because it’s too politically toxic to try and fix them, but McConnell could have at least suggested that Scott’s plan had some merit even if he disagreed with the plan overall.
But in typical McConnell fashion, he rails harder against his fellow Republicans than he does against Democrats, especially when these Republicans are more conservative than he.