The guy I voted for would have said that breaking Social Security was not up for discussion. But at least this guy does seem to know how to do this politics thing, which is a refreshing change.
Would the Republicans either shut down the government over changing Social Security? Would they pass a major erosion of Social Security without Democratic Party co-sponsors? I don't believe it; they'd get crushed in the next election.
So the only way that SS gets on the table for real is if Democrats put it there, which is both a political loser and bad policy for Democrats.
Color me shocked if any of those cuts ever results in an actual reduction in expenditures because in the language of Washington "4 trillion in cuts" is a doublespeak way of saying "We're going to cut the projected growth in spending by $400 Billion a year and no program will ever see a year over year decrease in revenue"
Again, "expected budget cuts" <> actual reduction in funds. It means that they will not have as much money as they thought they were going to have and therefore not do something which they were planning to do. Yes this is a cut in the sense that they will have less money than they otherwise would have, but unless their actual budget for year 2 = X - Y where Y is a positive number their budget wasn't really cut, it just didn't grow as fast as they had planned for.
There is a very important difference, especially since the Federal budget has been growing faster than Inflation + population growth for a while now.
I'm glad that he's acting like the responsible adult. I doubt this will help him in the polls, though. He's taking a very, very hard stand (if he sticks to it), but it's not a popular one. Both sides can now blame the President for not giving them enough time when/if this falls apart, or for rushing the process, saying that if they'd had more time they could've negotiated [x thing they dislike] out of the bill.
I think he's calling the Republicans on their bluff. Republicans talk about cutting social programs, but they don't really mean it. It's political suicide. In a world where politicians only care about poll numbers, this kind of thing really resonates with me (and many others, I'm sure).
Eh, I don't know. I think the Tea Party wing is stronger than many think, and I think they're more committed to the ideals (or at leas the ideals of their very vocal Tea Party constituents) than most people think. We could see some cuts to SocSec. We need some cuts to SocSec and Medicare.
Part of the problem, I think, is that both sides are holding their fingers on the detonator of the same bomb and threatening to blow up the entire country. If that's the case, then it may be a hard sell on either side that the other guys (who were just repeating your threats) were the ones responsible. The President, however, now steps in as the third party on whom blame can be foisted. If that's intentional on his part, well, bully for him, he's acting like a statesman. But I don't know that we've had a proper statesman in office for damned near a century, so...
We need cuts on Defense, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and raising taxes at the same time. That pushes too many buttons and requires a specific bipartisan coalition that does not exist at this time when too many people are complacent that if both sides are eyeball to eyeball the other guy will blink first. Thinking Tea Party nihilists give a damn what happens to the USA as a whole is a mistake. The GOP political leadership, however, will either do what the 2% will increasingly want it to do or the GOP is dead as a political party the same way Old Labour died in Britain for a few decades.
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Would the Republicans either shut down the government over changing Social Security? Would they pass a major erosion of Social Security without Democratic Party co-sponsors? I don't believe it; they'd get crushed in the next election.
So the only way that SS gets on the table for real is if Democrats put it there, which is both a political loser and bad policy for Democrats.
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Dude...that is THE Classic line from Don Knott's "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken"
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Color me shocked if any of those cuts ever results in an actual reduction in expenditures because in the language of Washington "4 trillion in cuts" is a doublespeak way of saying "We're going to cut the projected growth in spending by $400 Billion a year and no program will ever see a year over year decrease in revenue"
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There is a very important difference, especially since the Federal budget has been growing faster than Inflation + population growth for a while now.
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I know this because they come to me, but we have no jobs for them either. So either agencies are cutting back or remaining steady.
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Part of the problem, I think, is that both sides are holding their fingers on the detonator of the same bomb and threatening to blow up the entire country. If that's the case, then it may be a hard sell on either side that the other guys (who were just repeating your threats) were the ones responsible. The President, however, now steps in as the third party on whom blame can be foisted. If that's intentional on his part, well, bully for him, he's acting like a statesman. But I don't know that we've had a proper statesman in office for damned near a century, so...
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