Many of the positions on deficits and spending that President Joe Biden assailed in his State of the Union message he once espoused. That contrast demonstrates one of the prime reasons Washington will not get federal spending under control—opportunistic political charlatans like the current occupant of the Oval Office.
When the president attacked lawmakers who “want Medicare and Social Security to sunset,” he should have begun by using the perpendicular pronoun. In July 1975, then-Senator Biden proposed legislation to terminate “all provisions of law in effect on the effective date of this Act which authorize new budget authority for a period of more than four fiscal years.”
Biden’s supporters may try to parse that language by claiming that terminating the authorizations for Medicare, Social Security, or the military would not necessarily prevent federal dollars from flowing to those programs. But such claims stand at odds with Biden’s own comments regarding his bill. He said the bill “requires every program”—including Medicare and Social Security—“to be looked at freshly at least once every four years. The examination is not just of the increased cost of the program, but of the worthiness of the entire program.”
Similarly, when Biden claimed that “if anyone tries to cut Social Security [and Medicare], I will stop them,” he omitted his long history of supporting proposals reducing spending on these programs. In spring 1984, Biden, along with Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Nancy Landon Kassebaum, R-Kansas, proposed an across-the-board freeze on federal spending.
The bill would have
