White House Mocks Scott For Dropping Plan To 'Sunset' Social Security And Medicare

White House Mocks Scott For Dropping Plan To 'Sunset' Social Security And Medicare

Sen. Rick Scott

U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) for over a year has had a radical, published, 12-point plan that calls for all federal laws to be “sunsetted” every five years – voided, in other words – unless the House and Senate can pass them again and the sitting President signs them back into law.

It literally reads: “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.”

Social Security and Medicare, along with every other law Congress has passed in our nearly 235 years under the U.S Constitution, would be subject to Scott’s plan, if it were to become law.

And yet, Senator Scott has consistently claimed that he never called for that, and that he would never touch Social Security or Medicare, despite it being here, in print:

Here’s Sen. Scott last year, getting criticized on Fox News, and denying his published plan says what it says.

During the State of the Union President Joe Biden politely criticized what he generously characterized as “some” Republicans wanting to kill Social Security and Medicare.

Republicans called him a liar, during that solemn event, on primetime national television.

On Friday Sen. Scott officially stated he was changing his plan, and Social Security, Medicare, and the Navy would be exempt.

The White House, asked about the change by NBC News’ Peter Alexander, did not shy from a fight.

“So I have a couple of things to say to the Senator,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told Alexander. “So I’ll first say this, that the President congratulates Senator Scott on joining the post-State of the Union red wave, as we have seen from Republicans acknowledging that they are in fact been attempting to put Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block because that’s what they are actually saying, that they were indeed attempting to do that.”

“So for the past year, and we have the facts the past year, he has explained the absence of an exception by saying, if it’s worth keeping, we’re going to keep it but make no mistake, his true colors are undeniable and on the record,” she said of Sen. Scott, “they have been speaking at both sides of their mouths here. That’s what Republicans in the Senate and Congress more broadly have been doing cutting Medicaid and Social Security benefits is a long standing passion of Senator Scott’s as it for the majority of the House Republicans who compromise the Republican Study Committee and many of his Senate colleagues ranging from John Thune and to Ron Johnson.”

Watch White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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