Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News

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Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) has taken another step in his resolute effort to force a showdown with President Joe Biden over the issues of Social Security and Medicare. 

Friday, after a week of back-and-forth between the president and junior Florida senator, the latter of whom Biden has singled out repeatedly as being an enemy of the elderly, Scott introduced a bill that he says will protect Social Security and Medicare from the prying hands of spend-happy politicians. 

“While Democrats howl and lie about made-up threats to Social Security and Medicare, the reality is they haven’t done one thing to protect them,” Scott said in a statement. “In fact, Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress have done more to hurt Social Security and Medicare than anyone I can think of. 

“While Joe Biden had legislation to actually cut entitlements, my record shows that I’ve been 100% committed to protecting them from the start. I welcome Biden and anyone else who truly cares about protecting seniors to support this good bill.”

Friday evening, Scott tweeted “I’m fighting like [heck] to protect critical programs like Social Security and Medicare, and that starts with balancing our budget and getting our fiscal house in order.”

Biden mentioned Scott in the State of the Union address and later during a speech in Tampa, on both occasions accusing Scott of wanting to cancel both social programs. 

“The very idea the senator from Florida wants to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block every five years I find to be somewhat outrageous, so outrageous that you might not even believe it,” Biden said Wednesday. 

Scott certainly doesn’t seem to believe it, and he is the Florida senator in question. 

The Protect Our Seniors Act is an interesting play for Scott as he seeks to maintain the rhetorical high ground against Biden. With his bill, Scott has not only sent a message to the elderly but also forced Biden to show how loyal he actually is to the nation’s elders and just how much he truly values the programs he has accused Scott of undercutting. 

Beyond establishing a two-thirds requirement for Congress to pass any legislation that would cut Social Security or Medicare, Scott’s act will force Biden and Democrats to choose between their stated concern for the well-being of the elderly and their desire to push other initiatives.

“[The] Protect Our Seniors Act will rescind funding for Joe Biden’s new 87,000 IRS agent army and redirect those funds to Medicare and Social Security to shore up these programs and address threats of insolvency,” Scott said. 

Additionally, the act would require Democrats and Republicans alike to commit to refraining from redirecting money from Medicare into other projects.

“[My] bill establishes a ‘Keep Medicare Savings in Medicare’ requirement,” Scott said. “That means that if any bill makes changes to Medicare that result in a ‘savings,’ every dollar of those savings must remain in Medicare and are prohibited from being used to fund woke projects as Democrats have recently done in their so-called Inflation Reduction Act.”

The final tenet was a direct response to the Biden administration having sold the Inflation Reduction Act as being free because it would allow the government to shift saving away from Medicare and toward other programs.