Promising small government is one thing – actually taking away or materially reducing Social Security benefits is quite a different matter. Preaching the repeal of health care reform works nicely with an emotional voter – substantially cutting their Medicare benefits would be a pretty cold slap in the face to that very same voter.
And yet, nobody can make a serious dent in the federal budget without taking a big whack out of both entitlement programs. It simply cannot be done.
Small wonder GOP candidates are loathe to actually give voice to what they would have to do to deliver on their pledge to substantially reduce the size of government.
And the end of the day, the Republicans will have sold something to the buyers that the buyers really don’t want but don’t yet know it. As a result, they will be left to either ignore their promises or be forced to follow through on them. Ignoring promises is bad. In this instance, at least from a political perspective, delivering on them would be even worse.
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