Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., has introduced legislation that would establish a new Senate rule requiring two-thirds vote on any legislation cutting Social Security or Medicare benefits and would redirect part of the $80 billion IRS funding boost under the Inflation Reduction Act to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.
The bill, the Protect Our Seniors Act, also 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," Scott said.
The Inflation Reduction Act gave the IRS a 10-year budget boost of about $25 billion for operational support and $47 billion for enforcement. House Republicans have been seeking to repeal this funding since their first vote as the majority in the chamber.
As Scott explained, his bill would:
- Rescind funding from the Inflation Reduction Act for 87,000 new IRS agents and redirect those funds to the Medicare and Social Security Administration trust funds.
- Create a budget point of order, and require a two-thirds vote, against any legislation that the Congressional Budget Office determines would reduce existing Medicare and Social Security benefits.
- Amend CBO scoring laws such that savings to Medicare cannot be used to offset or pay for spending outside of Medicare.
The proposal comes after Biden, in his State of the Union address and other speeches, criticized a proposal by Scott that would require all federal legislation to be reauthorized every five years. Scott later amended the plan, saying it was never intended to apply to Social Security and Medicare.
Social Security Advocates Respond
Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, told ThinkAdvisor in an email that the group is "pleased that under pressure from President Biden, Senator Scott is backing away from his plan to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block every five years."
Scott's plan "to sunset all other federal legislation would still put many other programs that are essential to seniors in grave danger, including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program," Altman said.
