“I only know one thing: I’m against cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid”
Republicans say such changes are an essential part of any big deal. And Obama previously has been open to a number of reforms that irk the liberals, such as raising the retirement age of Medicare, means-testing and adopting an inflation calculation, known as chained CPI, for Social Security.
Inevitably, if there is an agreement on a big deal, Democrats will have to get on board for it to pass. But the 2012 election brought in new Democratic members of the House and Senate who are more liberal and more outspoken, strengthening the left wing of the caucus.
One hundred and seven of the 200 House Democrats signed a letter to Obama threatening to vote “against any and every cut to Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security benefits — including raising the retirement age or cutting the cost of living adjustments that our constituents earned and need.”
Instead, they want the White House to “rely on economic growth and more fair revenue-raising policies to solve our fiscal problems,” like getting rid of subsidies for big businesses and raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
Blowback
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Of course, that is where the reforms need to happen you dolts.
If people dont wake up soon there WILL BE NONE OF THAT LEFT!
watertown on March 11, 2013 at 9:42 PM
SSDD with these folks and the lsm rather focus on gop obstruction?
Puhleeze
cmsinaz on March 11, 2013 at 9:45 PM
How did they earn it? Voting for the money to come out of other people’s pockets?
astonerii on March 11, 2013 at 9:46 PM
Reform doesn’t mean elimination…and that’s what the Dems are claiming.
ProfShadow on March 11, 2013 at 9:46 PM
The Welfare State is going to end regardless of what the left desires.
Why? $17 TRILLION dollars in debt (climbing by over $1 trillion more a year) and $100 TRILLION dollars in SS/Mediscare unfunded liability.
This is what brought down the Soviet Union, their economy couldn’t sustain their militaristic totalitarian communist socialist state.
Ours can’t sustain the one we’ve built either. It’s ironic that 30-ish years after Reagan bankrupted the Soviet Union into collapse the United States is headed for the same fate.
wildcat72 on March 11, 2013 at 9:49 PM
Actually, that’s three things you know, not one.
Dusty on March 11, 2013 at 9:49 PM
Forgot to add: This is why I favor LET IT BURN. We will NEVER solve this politically. We HAVE to go through the total collapse and hope we learn our lesson and build something better.
NO ONE will ever have the will to stop the spending until the power to spend simply vanishes from them by means outside their control.
wildcat72 on March 11, 2013 at 9:50 PM
So sayeth the reactionary Democrat, Keith “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour?” Ellison, who would refuse to reform Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid even if it saved the programmes and gave young Americans the same opportunity at a shot at the American Dream and living standards that their grandparents had.
Resist We Much on March 11, 2013 at 9:51 PM
Correct it or it will correct itself. One way at least offers a chance to deal with it as it happens, the other way comes suddenly and is accompanied by violence, slaughter, blood, and death.
Bishop on March 11, 2013 at 9:55 PM
SS+HC in two years time will top $2 trillion dollars. Hint, WE CAN’T F***ING AFFORD IT.
Both are broken systems that need to be dismantled.
Go to hell.
tom daschle concerned on March 11, 2013 at 9:56 PM
Obama in 2005 Attacks Bush For Not Tackling Medicare
Resist We Much on March 11, 2013 at 9:57 PM
Read more here
and here
tom daschle concerned on March 11, 2013 at 9:57 PM
We are WELL past the point of being able to correct it or prevent the inevitable.
It’s GOING to happen, and Obama’s recklessness is HASTENING what is now inevitable. Trust me, when all’s said and done even we might have some sympathy (NOT!) for how hated a figure in history he will end up being.
At the rate we were going under Bush, at deficits of $200-300 billion a year we might have avoided total economic collapse of the government for 25 years. Obama’s deficits that are 4+ TIMES that annually has actually burned at least that many years of credit away.
He’s literally burning our dollar at both ends.
As I have said, last year 61% of our deficit couldn’t even be SOLD to creditors as bonds, the Fed “bought” it with printed dollars.
That stage is the literal ENDGAME for our currency and our government.
There is nothing we can do to stop it. Only thing you can do is get the hell out of the cities and make sure your family has the resources to survive until something better comes.
wildcat72 on March 11, 2013 at 10:01 PM
And that, my friend, is possibly the only way the libs will figure it out.
BallisticBob on March 11, 2013 at 10:03 PM
I’m still stunned at the ignorance of the other side. And I’m not talking about Ellison- he’s just a communist. I’m talking about the commenters on the Politico page. One guy is blaming the whole entitlement crisis on Medicare Part D. Others have no clue that all of these entitlements are unsustainable. And no one wearing blue has any idea why folks like Ellison are so dead set against cuts.
Just stunning.
BKeyser on March 11, 2013 at 10:04 PM
How did they vote on Obamacare? Because if they voted “yes,” I call them liars.
besser tot als rot on March 11, 2013 at 10:04 PM
I guess we have to raise revenue then.
I suggest taxing unions.
The IRS really needs to step up their audits of Democrats, as well. Maybe if Democrats paid their taxes, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
malclave on March 11, 2013 at 10:04 PM
Fact: In 2009, 38.47% of the entire budget went to Social Security and Medicare and the two programmes consumed 64.48% of all Federal tax revenues.
Fact: The 2009 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports show the combined unfunded liability of these two programmes has reached nearly $107 trillion in today’s dollars and Laurence Kotlikoff, a well-known professor of economics at Boston University, puts the real figure over $222 trillion dollars!
Fact: In 2010, 41.29% of the entire budget went to Social Security and Medicare and the two programmes consumed 69.17% of all Federal tax revenues.
Fact: In 1940, the average worker had to pay only 0.2% of his salary to sustain the seniors of his time.
Fact: In 1950, the average worker had to pay only 2% of his salary to sustain the seniors of his time.
Fact: In 2011, the average worker has to pay 11% of his salary to sustain the seniors of his time.
Fact: In 2031, the average worker will have to pay 17% of his salary to sustain the seniors of his time. This is a staggering sum, considering that it is apart from all the other taxes he pays to sustain other functions of government, such as Medicare, whose costs are exploding.
Fact: On our current path there will be “actual” cuts to Medicare of 17% and Medicare would “end as we know it” in 2024, according to the Social Security and Medicare Trustees May 2011 report.
Fact: Medicare hospitalisation, as we know it will end in 2024, absent some change in policy or some change in moving forward.
Fact: The average American household spends 50 times more today on Medicare than it did in 1960.
Projection: When today’s college students reach retirement (about 2054), Social Security alone will require a 16.6% payroll tax, one-third greater than today’s rate, according to the non-partisan Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform.
Projection: When Medicare Part A is included, the payroll tax burden will rise to 25.7% – more than one of every four dollars workers will earn that year.
Projection: If Medicare Part B (physician services) and Part D are included, the total Social Security/Medicare burden will climb to 37% of payroll by 2054 – one in three dollars of taxable payroll, and twice the size of today’s payroll tax burden, according to the non-partisan Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform.
Projection: More than one-third of the wages workers earn in 2054 will need to be committed to pay benefits promised under current law. That is before any bridges or highways are built and before any teachers’ or police officers’ salaries are paid.
Projection: By 2030, about the midpoint of the baby boomer retirement years, the Medicare will require nearly half of all income tax dollars, according to the non-partisan Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform.
Projection: By 2060, Social Security and Medicare will require nearly three out of four income tax dollars.
“Lies” About Social Security and Medicare Pandering Politicians Never Told You
Resist We Much on March 11, 2013 at 10:05 PM
It’s also why they want our guns. And why government agencies are stocking up on enough ammo to fight a c1vil War that could last 20 years.
Obama is malevolent, not stupid. He KNOWS he is collapsing the system. His third term will literally flow from the barrel of a gun. it’s what he seeks, the transformation of America from a Republic to a totalitarian state.
Total collapse is the best way of achieving it, and by ratcheting up the accumulation of debt to Warp Factor 9 not only allowed him to buy “his last election” by making the Looters a political MAJORITY, it is ensuring he is the “beneficiary” of the collapse.
Of course, I don’t think things will proceed exactly as he and his evil minions have foreseen… The United States probably needs another 2-3 generations before enough of the people and states are cowed into enough submission to ever accept anything but our Republic.
wildcat72 on March 11, 2013 at 10:10 PM
There aren’t enough supplies in my city to keep the family alive until something better comes.
Depression Part Deux in this nation will make Cambodia under Pol Pot seem like a walk in the park.
Bishop on March 11, 2013 at 10:11 PM
The career most in demand very soon won’t be technology but will be farming.
Most people have no clue what we are potentially facing, that it’s on the same scale as the collapse of Roman Civilization in the West.
wildcat72 on March 11, 2013 at 10:14 PM
I don’t know if farming will cut it unless you can ring your land with armed men. If the cities ever empty out the people will head for the “farms” where they believe they will find kindly rural folk welcoming them with feather beds and homemade apple pie.
It will be a locust mentality, stripping everything bare and then moving on.
Bishop on March 11, 2013 at 10:19 PM
I’ll opt out. Just give me my money back. Nice shack in the white mountains, I’ll survive. I paid in my whole life. Can I just get some of it back? I’m willing to take even a percentage to just opt out.
Get the hell out of my life. Give me my money back. I could have bought land with it.
Thieves. That’s all they are.
In a just world, they owe me interest if I cashed out.
wolly4321 on March 11, 2013 at 10:21 PM
Bish,, funny you should mention polpot, with the education system we have.
Spot on.
wolly4321 on March 11, 2013 at 10:23 PM
?
OldEnglish on March 11, 2013 at 10:26 PM
Your average inner city thug would be helpless 5 miles outside of one. Especially against people who haven’t been disarmed by the cities…
Your average Obamavoter inside a city has to be bussed to the polling place, to the welfare office, to the government cheese handout. Look at New Orleans as an example of what those people do in the event of any kind of disaster: they sit on their butts and wait for government to save them. They couldn’t be bothered to walk 10 miles to safety on their own. Chances are a great majority of them will starve to death before they even realize their city is a death trap.
Any place that’s 50 miles from a major city (100K plus) should be safe enough.
wildcat72 on March 11, 2013 at 10:28 PM
The greatest enemy of a liberal is someone who “just wants to be left alone”. You can’t be permitted to do this because your betters, well are just smarter than you. Just ask Michael “Sodapop” Bloomberg.
wildcat72 on March 11, 2013 at 10:31 PM
Problem is, there are plenty of people right here in my general area who are living large and have no idea what’s coming. The type of people who will drop their kid off right in front of the school door because having them walk an extra 10 feet would be a human rights abuse or something. People who have the latest of everything but only $200 in the bank. People who go into hysterics if the power dies for longer than 3 hours.
Bishop on March 11, 2013 at 10:44 PM
I know people who can’t imagine the Internet being down for 3 hours.
True story: had one of our employees call me during the extended power outage from last summer’s Derecho storm (the one that smashed through from Indiana to West Virginia last June) wanting to know if there was any way to get Internet with no power.
IE, even the cell towers had no power. Had to explain to him that without electricity that the whole computer industry basically doesn’t exist and all…
wildcat72 on March 11, 2013 at 10:50 PM
Those 107 must be the Communists (er, “progressives”) that Allen West was referring to.
onlineanalyst on March 11, 2013 at 10:51 PM
The cost of this Federal Ponzi Pyramid will blow up within 20 years, at most.
Be prepared.
profitsbeard on March 11, 2013 at 10:54 PM
So about 60% of the budget is off limits. What does that leave? Defense? Customs? The IRS? The INS?
Let’s assume that Defense and Customs is also off limits.
That leaves Education, Commerce, Homeland Security,…
OK, that’s good for starters….
unclesmrgol on March 11, 2013 at 11:33 PM
Raising taxes on the ‘wealthiest’ wouldn’t cover these programs shortfall if it was 100%. Nor nearly. Do the MATH, you idiots!
michaelo on March 12, 2013 at 5:14 AM