Speaker John Boehner and President Obama
The media heated up on Friday reporting that President Obama’s new budget deal will include cuts to Social Security and Medicare (GASP!!!!). It was reported that the “left” exploded at the idea of cuts to earned benefits. If the media would do their jobs they would know the President has been offering these “cuts” for a couple of years now and the Republicans have always refused the offer because they don’t want to increase taxes. They don’t want the President to have a win of any kind. Right now there is a lot more heat than flame.
The key deficit reduction elements of the plan incorporate an offer Obama made to Boehner in December as both men sought to avert an impending “fiscal cliff” of automatic, across the board spending cut and broad tax increases
Obama’s plan has two central features — $580 billion in new taxes that Republicans oppose and a new inflation formula, rejected by many liberals, that would reduce the annual cost of living adjustments for a broad swath of government programs, including Social Security and benefits for veterans.
In his address, Obama said he would achieve deficit reduction by making “tough reforms” to Medicare and by enacting “commonsense tax reform that includes closing wasteful tax loopholes for the wealthy and well-connected.”
Obama, however, made no mention of the effect his budget would have on Social Security and on other social safety net programs, a key feature of his proposal and one that drew hostile reaction from some of his most ardent political backers.
This isn’t the first time the President has dangled cuts in Social Security and Medicare in order to get higher taxes on the wealthy and it isn’t the first time the Republicans have rejected any increase in taxes.
They just don’t want the President to get any kind of win.
The concern I have is if the President gives in and we end up with the cuts and not the tax increases.
That can’t happen? Remember the sequester?
The Republicans got the drastic cuts they wanted and lip service on taxes. Except for putting back money into defense they will not reduce or remove the sequester.
So yes, call your Congress critters and complain about the attempt to cut Social Security but unlike the media I am not exploding over the President’s plan since I’ve seen it all before.
More than likely the Republicans will help prevent the cuts by not accepting the Grand Bargain.
Tags: austerity, budget cuts, earned benefits, grand bargain, income tax, John Boehner, Medicare, President Barack Obama, sequester, Social Security