Bernie Sanders hits Joe Biden on Social Security — again

Bernie Sanders may have apologized to Joe Biden for an op-ed a surrogate wrote calling Biden “corrupt,” but Sanders isn’t easing up on his attacks on the former vice president for things Biden’s said in the past about Social Security. Late Tuesday night, Sanders tweeted, “Let’s be honest, Joe. One of us fought for decades to cut Social Security, and one of us didn’t. But don’t take it from me. Take it from you.” 

He attached a video clip of then-Senator Biden on the Senate floor from 1995 making this statement: 

“When I argued that we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well. I meant Medicare and Medicaid. I meant veterans’ benefits. I meant every single solitary thing in the government. And I not only tried it once — I tried it twice. I tried it a third time, and I tried it a fourth time.”

In 1995, Bill Clinton was president and trying to balance the federal budget. It was a time when a number of politicians — Republicans, along with centrist Democrats — thought it would be prudent to cut the nation’s spending and secure the future of entitlement programs. At the time, Biden was among the deficit hawks who agreed with that approach.

Now, even though Social Security’s insolvency may be looming — it may only be able to pay 80% of the benefits due by 2035, few politicians care to reckon with what they view as the toxic politics of tweaking entitlement spending. Medicare is in worse shape, staring at possible insolvency by 2026.

Biden is now pledging that he won’t cut Social Security or Medicare if he’s elected and in fact, he’d even increase benefits for some. According to his campaign website, Biden would provide a higher benefit for the oldest Americans and would implement a minimum benefit for lifelong workers. Workers who spent 30 years of working will get a benefit of at least 125 percent of the poverty level.

Despite the increasingly shaky status of Social Security’s medium-term prospects, Sanders and Elizabeth Warren want to increase benefits for workers. Both have said they’d collect more taxes from the wealthy to pay for their expansion, raising the caps on payroll tax income that’s subject to Social Security taxes.

The newly-tweeted video wasn’t the first time in recent days that Sanders and his team have critiqued Biden’s past remarks on Social Security funding. A few days ago, the Sanders campaign was pointing out a 2012 video that takes a Biden remark out of context and appears to show him agreeing with former Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan about privatizing the program. It didn’t show the part of the footage that makes it clear that Biden was being sarcastic.

He accused the Sanders campaign of releasing “doctored” footage and asked Sanders to apologize.

On Sunday, Sanders told CBS News: “[Joe] is a decent person. He is a friend of mine. People like him. And we’re not going to make personal attacks on Joe Biden but I think the record shows that Joe’s history in the Senate and my history in Congress are very different.”

Biden asserted to VICE News the Sanders campaign had “lied” about his record.