The GOP has said, no increase in debt ceiling without a reduction in spending.
How hard is that?
Yet I return to the news and find that the spin has changed. Lately all the stories are saying that the GOP’s position is essentially, “no increase in debt ceiling period”.
And Obama’s answer to compromise is, “let’s cut Social Security AND increase taxes”. Why not just cut?
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.
Just cut damn spending. Start with ACORN.
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What’s really maddening is the President apparently has said “no touching Health Care Reform law, no Medicare reform, no Medicaid reform, no Social Security reform” but you Republicans are the ones I’m going to paint as unwilling to compromise because you don’t want to increase taxes.
And oh, please walk into my trap because your eyes get full of stars when I talk about BIG savings by cutting Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, in ways that won’t be sustained. Last time (1997) we balanced the budget by cutting programs without reform, we spent years giving back the money.
Michael Cannon of Cato has a great piece in the Natl. Review saying the structure of changes to entitlement programs is FAR more important than the numbers. Jim Capretta has a similiarly good piece today warning Republicans not to get snookered by a new proposal to get $4 trillion in savings by the Admin — in a way that helps his re-elect and really is just a big shell game with no real savings.
Correction — Michael Tanner, not Michael Cannon piece: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/271111/how-get-real-spending-cuts-michael-tanner
In the same article I linked to, it mentions Obama being in full support for temporary payroll tax cuts. Some how that is going to stimulate the economy.
The reason people are not hiring now, and others aren’t spending, is because they can’t count on anything regarding the future.
How on earth do short term changes help that?
Thanks for the national review link. It’s a goodun.
When a household is in trouble from too much spending, step one is to cut up the credit cards. Doh
Couldn’t agree with you more TG and JG!