What the fuck is wrong with these people?
President Obama is pressing congressional leaders to consider a far-reaching debt-reduction plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for Republican support for fresh tax revenue.
At a meeting with top House and Senate leaders set for Thursday morning, Obama plans to argue that a rare consensus has emerged about the size and scope of the nation’s budget problems and that policymakers should seize the moment to take dramatic action.
In debt talks, Obama offers Social Security cuts
Obama, Democrats not ready to play 14th Amendment card with debt ceiling
Republicans, Democrats spar over tax increases for debt deal
McCain opposes balanced-budget amendment in debt dealAs part of his pitch, Obama is proposing significant reductions in Medicare spending and for the first time is offering to tackle the rising cost of Social Security, according to people in both parties with knowledge of the proposal. The move marks a major shift for the White House and could present a direct challenge to Democratic lawmakers who have vowed to protect health and retirement benefits from the assault on government spending.
“Obviously, there will be some Democrats who don’t believe we need to do entitlement reform. But there seems to be some hunger to do something of some significance,” said a Democratic official familiar with the administration’s thinking. “These moments come along at most once a decade. And it would be a real mistake if we let it pass us by.”
Rather than roughly $2 trillion in savings, the White House is now seeking a plan that would slash more than $4 trillion from annual budget deficits over the next decade, stabilize borrowing and defuse the biggest budgetary time bombs that are set to explode as the cost of health care rises and the nation’s population ages.
He did, really did, let people know what he felt was important, Very early on he said SocSec and Medicare needed “fixing,” and it seemed, based on his saying there wasn’t enough money, that “fixing” meant “cutting.”
But he got all kinds of criticism and then shut up about that stuff, because it made him seem like he wasn’t a Democrat, and instead said in private fundraisers for the Uberwealthy there wasn’t enough money (unless they paid more in taxes) for SocSec, Medicare, ecucation assistance, etc., to continue as they were.
We were given big hints — yet, on most lefty blogs, if commenters brought up these things, along with his tendency to side with big corporations, the commenters were attacked. If bloggers brought it up, they were flamed, ostracized, or ignored. Oh, and called racists.
But, he did indeed mislead the public by obfuscation and omission. Ah, those sins of omission…. He claimed Hillary was trying to “bamboozle’ the voters, but this was his projection since he knew he was bamboozling them.