WASHINGTON – When President Joe Biden called out Republican lawmakers on Wednesday who accused him of wanting cuts to Social Security and Medicare in his State of the Union address, many of them voiced support for those cuts.

“My Republican friends were shocked when I presented a plan to cut Social Security for some of their members and their caucus, and Marjorie Taylor and others stood up and said, ‘Liars, liars,’” Biden said while criticizing the economy. An event in DeForest, Wis.

When Biden chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee last year, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla. He drew attention to the plan prepared by “I got his brochure right here,” said Biden, who held it up and read from it, “All federal laws sunset every five years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.”

That would apply to programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the president said.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis. Biden also mentioned how Congress should reconsider such programs every year. During Johnson’s competitive re-election race last year, he said at a campaign stop that Social Security was “improperly set up” and that he would have been better off investing in the stock market. Johnson too said Radio shows that Social Security and Medicare should be eliminated as “mandatory” programs and subject to “discretionary” spending, meaning Congress would have to renew them annually or they would end.

“There’s a senator named Mike Lee, who last night was yelling ‘liar, liar, house on fire,’” Biden said, alluding to a recently surfaced 2010 video in which the Utah Republican said that was his goal. To turn off Social Security.

“They’re sure I didn’t choose to call them,” Biden said. “Look, a lot of Republicans, their dream is to cut Social Security and Medicare. Well, let me tell you this. It’s your dream, but I’m going to make it a nightmare with my veto pen.”

During his speech Tuesday night, Biden said that “some Republicans want to sunset Medicare and Social Security every five years.” As Republicans in the crowd began booing, he went off script and fired back: “We all seem to agree, Social Security and Medicare are now off the books.”

On Wednesday, Biden said the exchange effectively sealed a deal for Republicans. “It looks like we negotiated a deal on the floor of the House of Representatives last night,” Biden said.

“You’ve all been paying every paycheck into the system since you started working,” the president said. “These benefits are for you, the American worker. You earn them, and I will not allow anyone to cut them — not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”

Responding to Biden’s State of the Union address on Wednesday, Scott said in a statement that Biden misunderstood his proposal to repeal all federal laws within five years. “It’s clearly and obviously an idea intended to deal with all the crazy new laws our Congress has been passing of late. Joe Biden is confused … to mean I want to cut Social Security or Medicare is a lie, and it’s a lie. Dishonest Move … from a very confused President.”

But the GOP has repeatedly cut eligibility programs.

For example, former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. , when he chaired the House Budget Committee and laid out budget blueprints in 2012 and 2013, he proposed changing Medicare to a voucher system. It was a plan supported by many Republicans at the time.

Most recently, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., reintroduced legislation last year that he and Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, unveiled in 2019 that would allow parents to use a portion of their Social Security benefits for up to three months. Paid parental leave after the birth or adoption of a child. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank, said that under such a measure, “parents who choose parental leave would face a permanent reduction in their Social Security retirement benefits.”

Last year, the Republican Study Committee, a large group of House conservatives, also proposed a budget that would raise the retirement age to collect Social Security, based on changing life expectancy and reduce long-term benefits using a new formula.

Many Republicans, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, have refused to support the programs and recently said those proposals would be off the table in negotiations to raise the debt ceiling.

But not every Republican agrees with McCarthy. This week, Republican Study Committee Chairman Kevin Hearn, R-Okla. told Bloomberg News that despite McCarthy’s comments, “I don’t think it’s off the table.”