Sen. Bernie Sanders: Medicare, Medicaid Cannot Be Targets in Budget Talks

As Congress gears up for this year's budget negotiations, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told a rally on Capital Hill yesterday that legislators must protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and cannot put those programs on the chopping block anymore.

After last year's supercommittee failed to reach a consensus on savings within the national budget, Congress enacted 2 percent sequestration cuts to Medicare and other federal programs, which will begin starting fiscal year 2013, although Medicaid and Social Security were exempt. Sen. Sanders said those three main programs that help out seniors and the disabled should not be up for cuts again and were not the drivers of the recent economic turmoil.

"In my view, it is immoral and bad economics to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid because [former President George W. Bush] and Congress forgot to pay for wars and gave huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country," Sen. Sanders said in a news release.

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