Joe Biden loves to recount the tale of how, midway through the president’s State of the Union address, as the president accused Republicans of attempting to eliminate programs such as Social Security, strong objections from the House chamber abruptly changed his speech into a negotiation.
While sparring with Republican senators, Biden secured a vow to remove entitlement changes from the upcoming debt ceiling debate, securing a big victory before discussions even began.
“I never thought my third State of the Union address would be negotiated on the floor of the United States Congress,” Biden said after the speech. “But it worked.”
That spontaneous moment has grown in political significance in the months afterward, cited as evidence of Biden’s negotiation skills and devotion to the social safety net.
However, with Democrats prepared for a difficult race in 2024, some now want him to go further.
According to many people participating in the informal conversations, progressives have pressed Biden staff and Democratic leaders on adopting a plan to raise Americans’ Social Security payments in recent months.
They say that the idea would be generally popular with an electorate that considers Social Security to be one of the most important topics, particularly among seniors who are more inclined to vote. And, now that Republicans have sworn against cutbacks for the time being, it will allow Biden to carve out a fresh contrast with the GOP, one that portrays him as more supportive of the beloved social insurance program.
“The only weakness Democrats have in their Social Security policies is that not enough people know it’s them,” said Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, one of the organizations campaigning for the proposal.
“The way to get Republicans even more on the back foot about their plans to cut Social Security is to draw that incredibly clear distinction that Democrats want to expand and Republicans want to cut.”
During the 2020 Democratic primary, Biden advocated for Social Security expansion, proposing to increase payments for low-income pensioners and shore up Social Security’s main trust fund by boosting taxes on people earning $400,000 or more per year. But, confronted with dwindling legislative majorities after becoming president, Biden generally abandoned the plan.
Three years later, progressive groups urge him to reconsider it, in part because the likely opponent, Donald Trump, has explicitly stated that he does not want to eliminate entitlement programs (after earlier supporting similar ideas).
A report from CNN states that former President Donald Trump originally advocated increasing the retirement age to 70 and privatizing Social Security, which he labeled a “Ponzi”scheme”—stances he has chastised Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for as a former member of Congress and congressional candidate.
Trump made the remarks in 2000, in a book titled “The America We Deserve,” when he was mulling a third-party presidential run as a member of the Reform Party.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Data for Progress polled top White House officials and other key Democrats this autumn, and just 41 percent trusted Biden more to protect Social Security payments, compared to 36 percent for Trump. More than four out of ten people were also suspicious that Republican candidates who have proposed for benefit cuts or raising the retirement age would follow through if elected.
Biden campaign officials have shown receptivity to the case for benefit extensions, according to Lawson and others who spoke with them, but the campaign is still early in the process of developing a policy platform for 2024 and remains noncommittal on the notion.
“Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and the rest of the MAGA Republicans have repeatedly campaigned on gutting Social Security and Medicare and have the records to back it up,” campaign spokeswoman Ammar Moussa said. “Joe Biden will not let that happen, and we’ll make certain the millions of Americans who have paid for Social Security their entire lives know that when they head to vote next November.”
Some in the president’s inner circle are skeptical, claiming that Biden’s message of maintaining benefits vs. Republicans pursuing cutbacks is already well established. They wonder if introducing a completely new concept into the mix may cause confusion. The president is also intending to run on a list of actual successes that people may value more than lofty notions like Social Security extensions.
And, as Democrats are inclined to do, some have become engrossed in the underlying policy details. They warn that the party will need to resolve disagreements about which pensioners would benefit and, eventually, how the entire thing will be paid for. Aside from Biden’s 2020 proposal, numerous senators, notably Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), as well as Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), have long-standing expansion proposals of their own.
The president is also intending to run on a list of actual successes that people may value more than lofty notions like Social Security extensions.
And, as Democrats are inclined to do, some have become engrossed in the underlying policy details. They warn that the party will need to resolve disagreements about which pensioners would benefit and, eventually, how the entire thing will be paid for. Aside from Biden’s 2020 proposal, numerous senators, notably Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), as well as Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), have long-standing expansion proposals of their own.
