(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . GOP senator appears on CNN to reassure us that, yes, Republicans really could sunset Social Security [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-12 Watch: x Mike Rounds on CNN suggests he supports funding Social Security on a year-by-year basis pic.twitter.com/a8TluKtZn2 — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 12, 2023 TAPPER: “President Biden out there, obviously, on the campaign trail, as it were—not officially—hitting Republicans all week on Medicare, Social Security. And he’s pointing specifically to the plan that your colleague Sen. Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, released when he was leading the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, which says, just to quote, ‘All federal legislation sunsets in five years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again,’ unquote. Do you support that plan?” ROUNDS: “I kind of look at Social Security the way I would the Department of Defense and our defense spending. We’re never going to not fund defense, but at the same time, every single year we look at how we can make it better, and I think it’s about time that we start talking about Social Security and making it better. We’ve got 11 years before we actually see cuts start to happen to people that are on Social Security. It could be very responsible for us to do everything we can to make those funding programs now and the plans right now so that we don't run out of money in Social Security and that it continues to provide all the benefits that it does today. Simply looking away from it and pretending like there’s no problems with Social Security is not an appropriate or responsible thing to do. So I guess my preference would be, let’s start managing it.” Yeah, we all know what Republicans mean when they talk about “managing” Social Security. In other words, despite all the performative writhing and near-speaking-in-tongues we saw during President Biden’s SOTU after Biden pointed out that some Republicans have suggested regularly sunsetting Social Security—it turns out that, yeah, that’s exactly what they want to do. Why else would Rounds bring up annual defense appropriations? Though he doesn’t want to tinker with Social Security every five years. That would be bonkers, yo. Let’s shoot for every year instead. x Republicans would never take away benefits like social security and Medicare. That would be unprecedented—Like overturning roe v wade or attacking the Capitol and Congress in broad daylight or refusing to convict a president for inciting insurrection to overturn his election loss — Luke Zaleski (@ZaleskiLuke) February 12, 2023 This really is the gift that can keep on giving for Joe Biden and the Democrats. In fact, now that the Biden administration has reclaimed WhiteHouse.gov and changed the admin password from something Trump couldn’t spell so he wouldn’t fill up the site with messages to his chief of staff asking where his golf socks and hydraulic steam girdle are, they’ve used the opportunity to point out the numerous instances when Republicans have threatened Americans’ hard-earned benefits. It starts out by mentioning this fun rant from GOP Sen. Mike Lee … x On the left, Republican Senator Mike Lee feigns outrage during the State of the Union when President Biden suggests that some Republicans want to cut Social Security and Medicare. On the right, Mike Lee says he wants to get rid of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. pic.twitter.com/vi6pYQmhZX — MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) February 8, 2023 … and it adds a couple examples you may or may not have heard about: The Republican Study Committee – which includes a majority of House Republicans – released a formal budget that, according to Politico, included “raising the eligibility ages for each program, along with withholding payments for individuals who retire early or had a certain income, and privatized funding for Social Security to lower income taxes.” according to Politico, included “raising the eligibility ages for each program, along with withholding payments for individuals who retire early or had a certain income, and privatized funding for Social Security to lower income taxes.” And in 2015, most House Republicans, including Speaker McCarthy, Rep. Scalise, and a host of others in current leadership, voted to raise the retirement age to 70, which would cut Social Security benefits for tens of millions of seniors who paid into the system for years. Gee, sounds like they kind of want to cut Social Security, huh? Of course, there are plenty of ways to preserve entitlement programs going forward without turning them into an annual tug-of-war. Like, say, lifting the cap on income that’s subject to Social Security tax. But the only thing Republicans hate more than being called out as the party of the grotesquely wealthy is not actually being the party of the grotesquely wealthy. So raising taxes on wealthy individuals is permanently off the table, no matter how much inequality we see. Because the 500 or so richest people in the world are playing a game with each other to determine who can hoard most of the planet’s wealth, and we all need to see who wins. It’s the only entertainment we plebs will have left after canceling cable to cover our ramen and slightly expired Spaghettios budgets. Of course, Republicans’ heartfelt assurances would be far more, um, reassuring if they hadn’t spent the past decade-plus discussing changes to Social Security, voting dozens of times to repeal Obamacare, and threatening the U.S. and global economies with their reckless debt ceiling brinkmanship. But hey, they think they can get away with it because they assume not enough of us are paying attention. So let’s prove them wrong. What do you say? Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE. 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