[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 29 (Monday, February 13, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S338-S339]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Debt Ceiling

  Madam President, now, on the debt ceiling, last week, President Biden 
distilled the sharp contrast between the Democratic and Republican 
approaches to the debt ceiling. And in the days since that, Republicans 
have made that contrast even sharper.
  Democrats have been clear about our position--very clear, crystal 
clear. We must raise the debt ceiling cleanly, in a bipartisan fashion, 
without blackmail or brinksmanship or hostage-taking.
  House Republicans have taken a different and far more dangerous 
approach. Rather than affirm the need to raise the debt ceiling 
together, House Republicans are trying to force the rest of the country 
into a perilous game of chicken, threatening to withhold their support 
for lifting the debt ceiling unless everyone agrees to spending cuts 
first.
  But to this day--to this day--despite more than a month of 
questioning, House Republicans won't answer one question: What cuts do 
they want? Where is their plan?

  House Republicans, where is your plan?
  I say to House Republicans, enough with the games. Show us your plan. 
You say you want cuts--well, what are they? You have an obligation not 
only to show us but the American people what they are. These could be 
quite dangerous to tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of 
Americans.
  Are House Republicans going to put Social Security and Medicare on 
the table in exchange for the debt ceiling?
  Well, last week, Republicans erupted like wild hornets during the 
State of the Union when President Biden pointed out the obvious: that 
many within

[[Page S339]]

their own party have been very open about wanting to target Social 
Security and Medicare, Rick Scott being among them, and he was the 
leader of the National Republican Senate Campaign Committee.
  But listen to this one. If you think this is just a few people, a few 
dangerous people, doing this, dangerous on Social Security and 
Medicare, that is, the Republican Study Committee, which includes a 
majority--a majority--of House Republicans, at least half--this is not 
some fringe group but half of the entire House conference--released a 
budget last year that proposed raising Social Security retirement age, 
cutting benefits to certain recipients, and even privatizing some parts 
of Social Security.
  Let me say that again because this--I don't know if it has been 
reported, but it is astounding. The Republican Study Committee, 
including a majority of House Republicans, released a budget just last 
year that proposed raising the Social Security retirement age, cutting 
benefits to certain recipients, and even privatizing some parts of 
Social Security.
  And almost as if to prove President Biden correct, Senator Johnson of 
Wisconsin reacted to the State of the Union by going on the radio and 
calling for annual votes on Social Security, calling it a Ponzi scheme.
  Let me say that one again too. According to Wisconsin Public Radio, 
Senator Johnson, last week, openly called Social Security a Ponzi 
scheme before bemoaning the failed attempt to privatize the program 
during the Bush administration.
  A, it is an incredible example of how out of touch MAGA Republicans 
are from average Americans, and, B, it shows that this idea that 
Republicans don't want to cut Social Security is not at all clear, no 
matter what Speaker McCarthy says. There are too many in his ranks who 
either are calling for it now or have called for it in the recent past. 
We Democrats are not going to stop fighting until this plan, bubbling 
up in Republican quarters even now, to cut Social Security, to cut 
Medicare is dead--D-E-A-D.
  So it brings us back to the $64,000 question: Are Republicans going 
to target Social Security and Medicare?
  Until Republicans actually show us their plan, we simply can't take 
them at their word that Social Security and Medicare won't be touched 
because the record over the last few years clearly shows that many of 
them are open to doing just that, cutting it.