Former Vice President and possible 2020 hopeful Joe Biden criticized President Donald Trump’s proposed 2020 budget for doing what his own administration asked for in their time at the White House.
Biden decried the budget, saying, “Did you see the budget that was just introduced? . . . Almost a trillion dollar cut in Medicare.”
“Why?” he continued. “Because of a tax cut for the super wealthy that created a deficit of $1.9 trillion, and now they gotta go make somebody pay for it.” (RELATED: Joe Biden’s History On Race Looms)
“Did you see the budget that was just introduced?” Biden asks. “Almost a trillion-dollar cut in Medicare.”
“Why? Because of a tax cut for the super wealthy that created a deficit of $1.9 trillion dollars, and now they gotta go make somebody pay for it.” https://t.co/1AHOniNqco pic.twitter.com/OPqCdHBW8U
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) March 12, 2019
A White House source argued to The Daily Caller that “either Biden never read his own administration budgets, he’s losing his memory, or he’s already bailing on Obama to appeal to the new socialists in his party.”
The staffer noted that the proposed reductions to Medicare exactly mirror the same mechanism proposed by the Obama administration.
The reductions are baked-in expectations of Medicare payment savings based on reduced payments to hospitals and in expected reductions for the price of prescription drugs.
Former Vice President Joe Biden puts his hand over his heart as he takes the stage to address the International Association of Fire Fighters in Washington, U.S., March 12, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
“What we are doing is putting forward reforms that lower drug prices, that because Medicare pays a very large share of drug prices in this country, it has the impact of finding savings,” Acting Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said at a Monday press briefing.
Vought added, “We’re also finding waste, fraud, and abuse. But Medicare spending will go up every single year by healthy margins, and there are no structural changes for Medicare beneficiaries.”
Peter Sullivan of the Hill noted based on a Center for Responsible Federal Budget analysis that “the vast majority of the Medicare cuts in Trump’s budget, released on Monday, are to payments to hospitals and doctors, not cuts to benefits for seniors on the program,” adding that the reductions “closely resemble or build upon proposals made in President Obama’s budgets.”
