Trump ran against Joe Biden's public policies in 2016. It's how Trump won.
Joe Biden's public policies got Trump elected as President of the United States.
“When I argued that we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well,” he told the Senate in 1995. “I meant Medicare and Medicaid. I meant veterans’ benefits. I meant every single solitary thing in the government. And I not only tried it once, I tried it twice, I tried it a third time, and I tried it a fourth time.” (A freeze would have reduced the amount that would be paid out, cutting the program’s benefit.)...
“The American people know we have to fix Social Security,” Biden said in 2007. “They know we’re going to have to make some tough decisions.”
In his 2007 interview with Russert as a presidential candidate, the “Meet the Press” host asked, “Senator, we have a deficit. We have Social Security and Medicare looming. The number of people on Social Security and Medicare is now 40 million people. It’s going to be 80 million in 15 years. Would you consider looking at those programs, age of eligibility…”
“Absolutely,” Biden said.
“ … cost of living, put it all on the table.”
“The answer is absolutely,” Biden said, reminding Russert that earlier in his career, he had been part of the small number of senators who had come up with the deal that raised the retirement age, and promised to protect each other from voters outraged at the cuts:
I was one of five people — I was the junior guy in the meeting with Bob Dole and George Mitchell when we put Social Security on the right path for 60 years. I’ll never forget what Bob Dole said. After we reached an agreement about gradually raising the retirement age, etc., he said, ‘Look, here’s the deal, we all put our foot in the boat one at a time.’ And he kicked — he stepped like he was stepping into a boat. ‘And we all make the following deal. If any one of the challengers running against the incumbent Democrat or Republicans attack us on this point, we’ll all stay together.’ That’s the kind of leadership that is needed. Social Security’s not the hard one to solve. Medicare, that is the gorilla in the room, and you’ve got to put all of it on the table.
At Iowa’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner in November 2007, weeks from the Iowa caucus, Biden again returned to Social Security. “The American people know we have to fix Social Security,” he said. “They know we can’t grow our way to a solution. They know we’re going to have to make some tough decisions. They’re ready to make those decisions. They’re ready to step up. We have to be ready to straightforwardly tell them what we’re about to do.”
As vice president, Biden was involved in multiple administration attempts to cut Social Security as part of a “grand bargain” with Republicans, all of them blocked by tea party Republicans, who couldn’t agree to any tax increases. In 2014, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said at a conservative event that Biden had privately told him he was supporting of raising the retirement age and means-testing Social Security benefits. “I asked the vice president, don’t we have to raise the age? Wouldn’t means-testing and raising the age solve the problem?” Paul recounted, with Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee on stage, adding that Biden said, “Yes in private, but will not say it in public.” Paul hadn’t been paying close enough attention.
A few years later, at a Brookings Institution event in April 2018, Biden addressed Social Security again. “Paul Ryan was correct when he did the tax code. What’s the first thing he decided we had to go after? Social Security and Medicare. Now, we need to do something about Social Security and Medicare,” Biden said, then added in a whisper: “That’s the only way you can find room to pay for it.”
Last week, the Biden campaign told Politifact that Biden was mocking Ryan and being sarcastic. Immediately after his whisper, he went into the kinds of adjustments to Social Security he thought should be made, the same type that Paul said he told him supported privately.
“Now, I don’t know a whole lot of people in the top one-tenth of 1 percent or the top 1 percent who are relying on Social Security when they retire. I don’t know a lot of them,” Biden said, alluding to the need to means-test Social Security. “So we need a pro-growth, progressive tax code that treats workers as job creators, as well, not just investors; that gets rid of unproductive loopholes like stepped-up basis; and it raises enough revenue to make sure that the Social Security and Medicare can stay, it still needs adjustments, but can stay; and pay for the things we all acknowledge will grow the country.”
When the program is popular, “adjustment” is a Washington euphemism for cuts. But you can count on Trump to use the more common term.
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Over the past 20 years, MBNA has been Biden's single largest contributor. And as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal note, Biden's son Hunter was hired out of law school by MBNA and later worked as a lobbyist for the company.
The Times also details just how helpful Biden has been to MBNA and the credit card industry. The senator was a key supporter of an industry-favorite bill -- the "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005" -- that actually made it harder for consumers to get protection under bankruptcy.
Biden's Cozy Relations With Bank Industry
"It was an unusually hot summer when Biden, then-chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced he was running for president. He burned bright. Past plagiarism brought him low. He dropped out of the race after just three months.
That first failed presidential bid is worth revisiting not just because Biden believes he is the last best hope for Democrats to defeat President Trump. It is also worth examining because of how Biden defined his candidacy between the two economic poles of unfettered free market capitalism and a command economy.
Even before he was Uncle Joe, Biden didn’t have time for fanatical economic piety or cultist protectionism. Take a look at his June 1987 announcement speech, an address he made from the financially strong Wilmington, Del.: “We cannot accept the naivete of free traders who ignore the flagrant abuses of our trading partners,” Biden said, “nor can we accept the morally bankrupt, easy answer on protectionism — an answer that smacks of defeatism. Protecting one job today at the cost of ten of our children’s jobs tomorrow is unacceptable.”
Biden said that in 1987, when unemployment was just 5.7 percent, growth was 3.5 percent, and malaise was an ugly word the country had nearly forgotten. Things are different this side of the last economic panic. The numbers are even better, but jitters remain thanks to the great recession. But if an older and wiser Biden believes what a younger and more idealistic Biden believed, we are in for a wild 2020.
Biden wouldn’t just be to the right of the other, grumpier national uncle, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on trade. Biden would be to the right of the grumpy yet jovial uncle currently in the Oval Office."
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