(RepublicanNews.org) – President Joe Biden took swipes at Republican lawmakers by accusing them of wanting to deprive the poor of medical help during a speech in Virginia Beach on February 28th.
Biden went to Virginia Beach to deliver a talk in which he praised President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act and Medicaid. Medicaid is a federal program that pays health costs for the poor through block grants passed through to the states.
Biden argued that efforts to cut taxes and balance the budget will raise the national debt by $3 trillion. In order to do this, he said, Republican lawmakers will need to repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut funding to Medicaid.
Bringing out one of his favorite phrases, Biden said “MAGA Republicans” were trying to strip healthcare from citizens, but that he would stop them.
This summer the now-perennial question of whether to raise the US debt ceiling will again come before Congress. Republicans now have control of the House, and they’re calling for major spending cuts before Congress considers raising the debt limit past its current $31.4 trillion cap.
Democrats say Republican policy measures are “hypocritical,” and they echo the White House’s messaging that the only way to balance the budget under a Republican plan is to cut programs like Medicaid.
Entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare are broadly popular among voters regardless of partisan affiliation. When serious national budget concerns arise, politicians regularly accuse opponents of endangering social welfare programs in an effort to stoke voter emotion against significant spending changes.
For their part, Republicans deny they have any intention of cutting Social Security or Medicare. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) met with Biden in February about the issue, but he refused to tell the press exactly where Republicans would cut the national budget.
President Biden is expected to release his proposed budget March 9th. White House officials claim the budget will cut $2 trillion over ten years without raising any taxes on Americans who make less than $400,000 per year.
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