Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., speaks to the cameras about the reconciliation bill in the Hart Senate Office Building on Monday, August 1, 2022.
Bill Clark | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
Now that the U.S. has hit the debt ceiling, lawmakers need to revisit the federal budget and find ways to make cuts, Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat representing West Virginia, said in interviews this weekend.
But that should not include cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits, he said.
“I’ve got 60% of my population that that’s all they have is Medicare and Social Security,” Manchin told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“You think I’m going to go down that path and put them in jeopardy? No,” he said.
In a separate interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Manchin called for a key change to help shore up Social Security’s ailing funds — raising the cap on payroll taxes that are used to fund the program.
“The easiest and quickest thing that we can do is raise the cap,” he said, while also curbing…
Read the full article here
