Florida Republican Rick Scott is disavowing his plan for Social Security and Medicare and took to the conservative Washington Examiner to complain that he has not been treated fairly by both President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on the subject.
According to a report from the New York Times, the Florida senator has been taking a beating from members of both parties over his publicly stated desire to review all government programs every five years and subject them to congressional review that could include letting them go by the wayside.
That proposal became a thorn in the side of Republicans when Biden made it a centerpiece of his State of the Union address that led Republicans to boo him and then be forced to cheer when the president asked them to support keeping the two programs in place.
Following that outburst, McConnell undercut Scott by name, telling reporters, "It’s just a bad idea. I think it will be a challenge for [Scott] to deal with this in his own re-election in Florida, a state with more elderly people than any other state in America.”
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Now the Times is reporting that Scott is throwing up his hands after still defending it several days ago.
"After a year of criticism, Senator Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, capitulated on Friday and amended his party policy agenda to exempt Social Security and Medicare from his proposal to terminate all federal programs every five years and subject them to congressional review.
"Scott said the agenda he issued last February, as the chairman of the Senate Republican campaign arm, was never intended to propose any cuts in the popular retirement programs, although he did not include any carveout for either in his plan," the report states.
Explaining his tabling of the proposal, Scott lashed out in his Examiner op-ed, writing, "That plank of my Rescue America plan was obviously not intended to include entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security — programs that hard-working people have paid into their entire lives — or the funds dedicated to our national security."
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He then complained about how he feels he was misrepresented.
"I have never supported cutting Social Security or Medicare, ever. To say otherwise is a disingenuous Democrat lie from a very confused president. And Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is also well aware of that. It’s shallow gotcha politics, which is what Washington does," he wrote. "These are leaders of the Washington status quo who are more than happy to watch the country fall deeper and deeper into debt and further and further into the Democrats’ woke, liberal nightmare if they can maintain their hold on power.
He later attacked members of his own party, writing, "One more inconvenient truth: Washington Republicans are as responsible for the massive increase in our national debt as Joe Biden and the Democrats. Too many Republicans have caved to the Democrats too many times, and the result is a $32 trillion bill that’s about to come due. It’s an abdication of our moral responsibility to future generations of Americans, and Republicans who have gone along just to get along should be ashamed."
You can read his op-ed here.
