Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) on Sunday blamed President Biden for what he called the politicization of Social Security and Medicare during his State of the Union address last month.
Kennedy on “Fox News Sunday” told Shannon Bream that Medicare faces financial trouble as soon as 2028, with the same going for Social Security in 2035, and that lawmakers need to discuss the issue of making both programs solvent. He then blamed Biden for bringing GOP suggestions to look at both programs as a way to balance the federal budget to the forefront during the address.
Biden has hammered Republicans on that notion — a tactic that Kennedy called “immature.”
“The problem is that President Biden in his State of the Union address decided to demagogue the issue. We all saw it,” Kennedy said.
“He basically said, if you talk, speaking to Republicans, ‘if you talk about Social Security or Medicare, I’m going to call you a mean, bad person.’ And that just took the issue off the table when the president decided to demagogue it,” he continued. “It was — you — you can only be young once, but you can always be immature, and I thought it was a very immature thing to do.”
Biden suggested during the address that Republicans wanted to cut both programs, which GOP lawmakers vocally protested, shouting him down and calling him a “liar.” The topic is a hot-button issue since both programs help older Americans, who are a key voting bloc.
Kennedy also floated another controversial the idea that lawmakers should “talk” about changing the retirement age. He questioned whether it still makes sense for those in their 20s to retire when they are in their early 60s in part because their life expectancy will be longer.
“Does it really make sense to allow someone who’s in their 20s today to retire at 62? Those are kind of things that we should talk about,” he added.
Kennedy stressed that the suggestion to even talk about any of those ideas was off the table because of the president.
“There are a lot of things we could talk about, but President Biden has taken that issue totally off the table. He says he has fixed it in his budget and that’s nonsense. That’s nonsense on a stick,” the Louisiana lawmakers said.