The Morning Plum: Why Obama wants a Grand Bargain

[ProSense]

The Morning Plum: Why Obama wants a Grand Bargain

Posted by Greg Sargent

The news of the morning is that President Obama will propose a budget next week that includes specific cuts in Social Security and Medicare along with new revenues — an effort to bring Republicans back to the table for a “Grand Bargain” to replace the sequester.

The entitlement cuts include Chained CPI for Social Security and a combination of means testing and provider-side cuts on Medicare, in addition to other spending cuts, which will anger liberal Democrats. Chained CPI is a fancy way of describing what is a real benefits cut. The budget seeks $580 billion in new revenues via closing loopholes enjoyed by the wealthy and oil and gas companies. There will reportedly be some new spending offset by money raised elsewhere — which is designed to prove that you can reduce the deficit and spend to prime the economy and help the middle class at the same time.

At a certain level, this shouldn’t surprise anybody. On entitlements, Obama is merely reiterating what he’s previously offered John Boehner, and it has long been clear that this offer is still on the table. Many liberals have long suspected that Obama actively wants to cut entitlements. So here is my understanding of White House thinking on why a Grand Bargain is a good outcome.

Obama and his advisers don’t necessarily view Chained CPI as good policy. But they think a Grand Bargain is ultimately a better outcome than continued sequestration, and the only way to the former is to peel off individual Republicans who are open to new revenues. They believe a Grand Bargain is good for Democrats in general, because it essentially would lock in a medium-term agreement over core disputes — about the safety net and about the size of government, and who should pay for it — that have produced a debilitating stalemate in Washington.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/04/05/the-morning-plum-why-obama-wants-a-grand-bargain/

[TheKentuckian]

1. Fuck the games!

[HiPointDem]

2. +1. congress mandated the sequester and they can unmandate it just as quick. they tied

their own hands and pretend someone else tied them up.

creepy fuckers.

[winter is coming]

3. Let me think, what did we get from the last "medium-term agreement"?

Oh yeah, the sequestration.

FAIL.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Except that Obama was gunning for SS cuts since before his first inauguration

Was he anticipating The Sequester four years ago?

That really would be eleventy-dimensional chess!

[JaneyVee]

5. F--K THIS, the rich sacrifice NOTHING for our Nation. Pick on THEM!

[Newest Reality]

6. How is the

austerity Newspeak going for us all? Sequestered and hog tied in the U.S. of A. "A" is starting to seem like it should stand for another, rather vulgar term.

This is getting to be like offering more hostages to hostage takers in order to appease them.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. The 'sequester' exists becuase Congress and Obama created it.

It was supposed to be so bad that it would never be allowed to take place. It was supposed to be brilliant three D chess. How'd it work out?

[Dawgs]

8. So, it's a never ending cycle.

Each time Obama agrees to give up something to "fix" the last thing he gave up. And every time it's a win for the Republicans and the rich, while the rest of us are left with more cuts.

Why does it feel more and more like we have a Republican in the Whitehouse.

[spanone]

9. ss cuts ain't gonna happen. reThugs will never close loopholes for gas & oil

[bahrbearian]

10. Obama wants a Grand Bargain

[rhett o rick]

11. THE GRAND BARGAIN - "Cut SS and Medicare and we wont stab you in the eye."

Interesting that we hear a lot about how the REpublican Party is almost extinct, yet they wield a lot of power. Well that doesnt compute for me. The Elite 1% wield the power and they are killing us and the Democratic Party appears complicit.

If Pres Obama truly supported the 99%, he should draw a line in the sand and say no cuts and revenue increases from the 1%. He should tell the 99% that he will stick to that until after the 2014 elections. If the American people agree with him, they need to vote in Democrats, if not then all bets are off.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Leave SS alone

Medicare, we need global, universal health care.

Stop with these attacks on the already weak American safety net

[Old Codger]

13. BS

If cuts to SS occur it will cement his legacy as the pres. that screwed over the senior citizens in favor of the 1%.... His so-called "grand Bargain" is nothing more than a payback to all the wall street fatcats that run our government.

[bigtree]

14. this is

. . . past naive.

The President has as much of a chance of getting a full compliment of what he wants from republicans as he does insisting and extracting revenue from them. He's looking to compromise to resolve 'core disputes?' That's some rookie shit there. With budgets, you either get what you want at first bite, or accept getting shafted in the future by succeeding Congresses. It's no wonder so many are using the term 'sold out.' Very few have any faith at all in Washington doing what it takes to preserve our social safety net, much less enhance it. We all know who is going to be the ultimate beneficiaries of belt-tightening; the rest of the government largess, not the poor and working class. We starve off of these compromises, while they experience a slight bit of temporary indigestion.

It's a foolish proposal, to target already vulnerable and much in-demand programs for cuts to continue to pay for the rest of the bloated, privileged mess. It's a kick in the shin, right now, when those elements (people) of our society have already sacrificed so much. In fact, in this sequester, it is that faction of Americans who are already feeling the pinch of this deliberate republican embezzlement. I don't think it's too much to ask that the president fights that battle before he comes to us with his hat in his hand.

I daresay, if he'd fight and win that battle to end the wealthy and corporate privilege gained from our hard-earned contributions to government, he wouldn't have a need to make the poor and working-class accountable for this deliberate mess Congress has engineered for decades now.

[ProSense]

15. I agree,

"It's a foolish proposal, to target already vulnerable and much in-demand programs for cuts to continue to pay for the rest of the bloated, privileged mess. "

...especially since Social Security is not a driver of the deficit. Offering SS cuts as a carrot to Republicans makes no sense.

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