On The Money — GOP senator, White House battle over Social Security

President Biden is eager to square off with Republican senators over whether they really want to cut Social Security. We’ll also look at how a top House Republican is proposing to cut federal spending and congressional fury over canceled flights. 

But first, see how a classified briefing for House lawmakers on the Chinese spy balloon turned tense on Thursday.

Welcome to On The Money, your guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line. For The Hill, we’re Sylvan Lane, Aris Folley and Karl Evers-Hillstrom. Subscribe here.

White House spars with Mike Lee on Social Security

The White House on Thursday hit back at Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) after the senator insisted he was not aware of any Republican in Congress who has tried to tie Social Security reforms to raising the debt ceiling, the latest swipe the administration has taken at the GOP on the issue.  

“By protesting too much, Congressional Republicans keep proving the President’s point about their long history of threatening Medicare and Social Security,” deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement to The Hill. 

“Half of Sen. Lee’s statement is an admission that he did indeed call for eliminating Social Security outright. But in terms of his claim that he’s aware of ‘no Republican — in either House of Congress — who has suggested any modification to Social Security as a condition for raising the debt ceiling,’ we can help.” 

The background: Bates pointed to several reports from the past few months about Republicans eyeing changes to Social Security and Medicare.

• He noted an October Fox News piece headlined “Republicans eye using debt limit hike to overhaul entitlement programs if entrusted with majority” that quoted multiple House members.
  
• He also pointed to a November Bloomberg report that said Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, indicated the party wanted to leverage the debt limit increase to secure cuts in federal spending and changes to entitlement programs. 

The White House has gone back and forth with Lee in the time since President Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, when the president drew jeers from the Utah senator and others when he argued some Republicans wanted to hold the debt ceiling hostage in order to sunset Social Security and Medicare.

The president also kept feuding with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) on Thursday, this time in the Republican senator’s home state. 

“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 told the audience at the University of Tampa. 

The Hill’s Brett Samuels has the rundown here. 
 

Read more: What Republicans have actually said about cuts to Social Security and Medicare 

✂ LEADING THE DAY

House Republicans unveil proposed cuts amid debt limit fight 

Republicans on the House Budget Committee recently unveiled potential areas of spending the party could target as a battle over raising the nation’s debt limit heats up on Capitol Hill.

The Republicans released a list of proposed items they targeted as “wasteful, inefficient and unnecessary federal spending” on Wednesday, including proposals like recapturing unspent pandemic response funds and ending so-called woke funding. 

• One featured proposal sought to save about $65 billion by capping ObamaCare subsidies “at 400 percent of poverty and below while recovering overpayments,” while other pitches were aimed at clawing back funds for the Environmental Protection Agency in the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act.
  
• Other proposals include targeting “fraud” in the child tax credit (CTC) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by requiring Social Security numbers for the CTC recipients and income verification for SNAP beneficiaries — an idea GOP lawmakers estimated could save “roughly $70 billion.”
  
• The GOP lawmakers are also pushing to cut “woke-waste” — what they described as “woke policies that American taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for” — that were a part of the bipartisan $1.7 trillion government funding bill passed in December. 

Aris has the details here.  

🧳 LOTS OF BAGGAGE

Republicans oppose stricter airline rules after Southwest meltdown  

Senate Republicans pushed back on the prospect of stricter airline rules during a Thursday hearing on the Southwest Airlines meltdown that impacted more than 2 million travelers over the holidays. 

Republicans argued Thursday that consumers should be left to decide whether they want to fly with Southwest, indicating that the mass cancellations may not lead to bipartisan legislation from Congress. 

• Democratic senators recently introduced a bill to require that airlines refund passengers for delayed flights and reimburse them for unexpected costs such as food, lodging and transportation.
  
• Under the law, carriers would have to pay at least $1,350 to passengers who are denied a seat on an overbooked flight. The bill would also prevent carriers from charging “exorbitant, unnecessary” fees.
  
• But that bill doesn’t stand a chance at securing 60 votes in the Senate. Republicans on Thursday argued that a crackdown on fees and overscheduling would lead to higher ticket prices for all travelers. 

The Hill’s Karl Evers-Hillstrom delves further here. 

Read more: Senators call out Buttigieg at Southwest hearing 

🥵 COOL IT

Attorneys general call for federal protections against deadly workplace heat 

Seven attorneys general are calling on the federal government to create emergency standards to protect workers from the summer’s deadly heat by the beginning of May.

“Extreme workplace heat poses a grave danger to the health and safety of tens of millions of outdoor and indoor workers in our states and across the nation,” the attorneys, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, wrote in a letter addressed to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Assistant Secretary of Labor Douglas Parker. 

• The letter — also signed by the attorneys general of California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania — builds on decades of concerted efforts by civil society groups to get the agency to pass rules requiring workers to access potentially lifesaving measures like water breaks, time in the shade and access to air-conditioned cooling centers.
  
• Currently, no such national rules exist, and only five states have guidelines in place, according to a study by the environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council. 

The Hill’s Saul Elbein digs more into this here. 

Good to Know

President Biden’s boost for an antitrust reform proposal targeting tech giants during his State of the Union address was embraced as a win for supporters backing the bill to limit dominant tech companies from preferencing their own products and services.  

Other items we’re keeping an eye on: 

• Meta, the parent company of Facebook, restored former President Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, giving Trump access to post on both social media platforms amid his previous suspensions from both platforms.
  
• Nearly half a dozen Walmart locations are set to close in the coming weeks, just two months after the retail chain’s CEO warned stores could close amid an uptick in shoplifting.

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading and check out The Hill’s Finance page for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow.