UPDATE: Nope, I’m hearing the Medicare eligibility age is STILL IN PLAY. Time to call your congress critters and say no way!
Looks like all you emoprogs and firebaggers have convinced Obama to back off his original plan to cut Medicare and Social Security:
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew on Monday outlined plans to pay for President Obama’s new jobs bill largely by increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans and closing tax loopholes for businesses.
Most of the new funds, Lew said, would be attained by limiting itemized deductions for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and families making more than $250,000, a plan President Obama has tried to push since his campaign days. Taking these steps would raise roughly $400 billion over 10 years, Lew said.
“We have choices to make. In order to invest in jobs and growth, we’re going to have to pay for it,” Lew said. “We think the American people will think this is the right package.”
The administration also include a long-time policy goal of taxing the income investment fund managers make, known as carried interest, as regular income instead of as capital gains, which has a lower 15 percent tax rate. So far, Wall Street has strongly resisted any attempt to increase the rate on so-called carried interest. That change alone, would provide an infusion of $18 billion in revenue, according to administration officials.
The elimination of a tax break for the oil and gas industry would raise another $40 billion, and another $3 billion would come from changing the way corporate jets depreciate. Combined with a few other smaller revenue raises, Lew said the total measures proposed by the administration would bring in $467 billion, with some “wiggle room” — $20 billion more than the cost of Obama’s jobs bill, to ensure there’s room to account for Congress’ bean counters score the total a bit differently.
As I noted somewhere, Obama has mentioned raising the Medicare age so often, changing the COLA so often, and otherwise indicated he really wants to do these things, he or his anonymous spokespeople can say it’s “off the table,” but he’s put on the table so much it has its own seat at the table.
The Republicans will bring up his prior offers, comments, trial balloons, and it will have to be defended fiercely. Obama will not be doing fierce defense of the Big Three social safety nets.
Can we depend on DC Dems with Obama as their titular Democratic Party leader to do so? I fear not.
Call, send post cards, write LTE’s. Get the word out that great damage can be done to these programs and MUST NOT BE DONE.
All these leaks and floated stories are the public option issue being played out all over again. We all know what the man thinks and what he is going to do. Anything else is wishful thinking.