Biden calls for Sanders to disown ‘doctored’ video on Social Security
@JoeBiden has called for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign to “disown” what he calls “doctored video” that some Sanders supporters say shows the former vice-president endorsing Republican calls to cut Social Security and Medicare.
“There’s a little doctored video going around … put out by one of Bernie’s people,” Biden told supporters on Saturday in Iowa, referring to a 2018 speech in which Biden discussed then speaker Ryan saying rising deficit demanded action on the popular entitlement programs.
“I’m looking for his campaign to come forward and disown it,” Biden continued, pointing to his 2020 campaign proposals designed to shore up Social Security. “But they haven’t done it yet.”
The video in question, circulated on Twitter by a top Sanders adviser, does not appear to be altered. But the short clip omits Biden’s larger argument over how Ryan handled the 2017 tax cuts and subsequent budget debates.
A separate Sanders’ adviser included a transcript of Biden’s remarks in the video clip in a separate campaign newsletter.
He added other, more extended video, of @JoeBiden as a US senator in 1995 and presidential candidate in 2007 explaining his support for a more austere federal budget, including putting Social Security and Medicare “on the table”.
The 2020 campaign flap highlights long-standing philosophical fissures between the progressive Sanders, who has spent decades arguing for a massive expansion of the federal government, and the more centrist @JoeBiden
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Those differences have come to the fore as @JoeBiden
and Sanders are bunched with Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren atop early state polls weeks before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
and Sanders are bunched with Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren atop early state polls weeks before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
“What I’d do is I make sure that we expand Social Security coverage,” @JoeBiden
insisted on Friday when a voter in Iowa asked him about the program.
insisted on Friday when a voter in Iowa asked him about the program.
@JoeBiden, like most Democrats, proposes raising the cap on the level of income that is subject to the payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare. That cap is set at $137,700 for the current tax year,
meaning any income beyond that threshold is still subject to personal income tax, but not payroll taxes. @JoeBiden, and many other Democrats, propose lifting that cap to increase the tax revenue flowing into the Medicare and Social Security trust funds.
Sanders’ camp, meanwhile, maintains that Biden’s history is more important than his current proposals. Another of their favorite video clips shows then Senator Biden, in the first years after Republicans’ 1994 midterm election romp, calling for a more austere approach.
Hey @BernieSanders why you kept quite about this? Trump ended Merit based ALJ hiring on 2018 READ This PLEASE 🤒
