All these people who think Obama was just pretending to cut Social Security because he knew Boehner didn’t have the votes.
I asked the president-elect, “At the end of the day, are you really talking about over the course of your presidency some kind of grand bargain? That you have tax reform, healthcare reform, entitlement reform including Social Security and Medicare, where everybody in the country is going to have to sacrifice something, accept change for the greater good?”
“Yes,” Obama said.
“And when will that get done?” I asked.
“Well, right now, I’m focused on a pretty heavy lift, which is making sure we get that reinvestment and recovery package in place. But what you described is exactly what we’re going to have to do. What we have to do is to take a look at our structural deficit, how are we paying for government? What are we getting for it? And how do we make the system more efficient?”
“And eventually sacrifice from everyone?” I asked.
“Everybody’s going to have to give. Everybody’s going to have to have some skin in the game,” Obama said.
Also, lying.
Resolving to “look at our structural deficit” sounds like a fine idea. But once you start doing that, it would be nice to consider all the components. Like, you know, something other than “entitlements” – especially since Social Security isn’t really an entitlement anyway; you certainly do contribute throughout your working career.
Rumor has it that we spend quite a bit on Defense, haven’t really paid for the past 2-3 wars, have 800 or so military bases all over the world, plus about 200 private golf courses all over the world for the exclusive use of our General staff level officers.
Do you think maybe a look at the “structural deficit” might include trends on those items, too?
Back in the 1960s, to defray Vietnam War criticism, Lyndon Johnson proclaimed that “we can have guns and butter”.
As the limits to growth are realized, we can now see we cannot have unlimited quantities of guns and butter.
So, basically our fearless leaders have decided – ‘keep the guns; and come to think of it we don’t need the butter anyway’.
“Skin in the game?” That disingenuous whore’s cliff offer leaves hedge fund billionaires taxed at 15%! Their only little scrape is campaign contributions of a fraction of their tax savings.