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sheshe2

(83,325 posts)
Fri Apr 5, 2013, 06:28 PM Apr 2013

Then there is this...

Liberals getting distracted...again

http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2013/04/liberals-getting-distractedagain.html

Remember what happened when Obamacare was being negotiated? Liberals got COMPLETELY distracted into thinking the only important provision was the public option. That's part of the reason so many people to this day don't know what was actually included in the legislation. As far as I see it - the public option was much less important than things like the largest Medicaid expansion in the program's history, or the medical loss ratios, or the exchanges, or the end of denials for pre-existing conditions, etc.

Today I see the exact same thing happening in that the only thing people are talking about when it comes to President Obama's budget is the fact that it contains use of chained-CPI. As I wrote about earlier today, when we actually see the details of the budget, what should become obvious is that there will be built-in measures to eliminate the impact this change has on those that are most vulnerable. With those provisions, a 0.3% annual reduction in the inflationary increase of payments is just not that big of a deal.



What I find baffling (and terribly disappointing) is that so little attention is being paid to the fact that President Obama's budget will also include implementation of his proposal for universal pre-K. To quote Vice President Biden..."this is a big fucking deal!"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/14/read-obamas-pre-k-plan/

I'm struggling a bit to understand why the silence on this one. Perhaps it has to do with some liberal's addiction to howling about the negative rather than pushing for the positive. In my darker moments, I wonder whether or not they actually give a shit about children.


Link to earlier post:
Chained-CPI: cue poutrage eruption

http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2013/04/chained-cpi-cue-poutrage-eruption.html

President Obama is set to release his budget on Wednesday and there are currently some leaks about what it will include. So of course the poutragers are out in full swing because it will apparently include using chained-CPI as the method to adjust both taxes and benefits to inflation.

But lets calm down a bit and take a look at a few specifics that we know about and then talk strategy for a moment.

First of all, I'd suggest that whenever you read a poutrager going ballistic about chained-CPI, look to see if they are including what President Obama's proposal does to mitigate the effect it will have on the most vulnerable. I can guarantee you that they won't because no one has seen the details yet.

But anyone on the left (including President Obama and Nancy Pelosi) who has been willing to negotiate about implementing chained-CPI has stressed the importance of including such measures.
There are two major changes necessary. First, add a bump in benefits to the very old, who are more likely to have high healthcare bills and to have exhausted their savings that supplemented their Social Security income. Second, exempt Supplemental Security Income, which serves the poorest, disabled and blind but still often leaves people below the poverty line.
One easy way to tell if people are including these mitigating measures in their calculations is that CBO has estimated that switching to chained-CPI will save $220 billion over 10 years. If these protections for the most vulnerable are included, that figure is reduced to $100-150 billion.


To have a full understanding, the article must be read:
This link that I posted above is important:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/14/read-obamas-pre-k-plan/
22 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Scuba

(53,475 posts)
4. I once took a 5-day class in negotiations ...
Fri Apr 5, 2013, 06:53 PM
Apr 2013

... one of the key teachings was to never give up anything earlier than you had to do so. Once you give it up, your concession immediately begins losing value.



Hard for me to see the President's move as good for America.

SoCalDem

(103,856 posts)
2. It's the slippery slope issue
Fri Apr 5, 2013, 06:45 PM
Apr 2013

Once it's started, it gets easier to continue. It's also the fact that republicans always briar-patch Dems into being the ones who breach the gap first, for issues that are near and dear to us.

liberal_at_heart

(12,081 posts)
7. so the middle class is just not that important huh? And I'm suppose to be happy with his universal
Fri Apr 5, 2013, 07:08 PM
Apr 2013

kindergarten? We need hundreds of millions of dollars for all aspects of education, pre-school, college, and especially k-12. Our k-12 system is crumbling beneath our feet and we are doing absolutely nothing to stop it. He has said before he wants to hire math and science teachers. What about reducing class sizes in all subjects? How about hiring art, music, and PE teachers? How about not tying funds directly to standardized testing? How about hiring teachers with Masters in Ed for all subjects? How about funding special education? His policy on education sucks and that alone is enough to make me not vote democrat in 2014. But chained CPI also sucks really bad too. What about middle class Americans who have saved on average about $80,000 for retirement who will desperately need Social Security when they reach retirement age? No. These compromises suck and I will not support them.

sheshe2

(83,325 posts)
11. Where is it stated that the middle class is no longer important?
Fri Apr 5, 2013, 07:50 PM
Apr 2013

Everything that you stated about education is true. So much needs to be done.

However

Quality Early Learning for Our Youngest Children
The President will also launch a new Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership program, to support states and communities that expand the availability of Early Head Start and child care providers that can meet the highest standards of quality for infants and toddlers, serving children from birth through age 3. Funds will be awarded through Early Head Start on a competitive basis to enhance and support early learning settings; provide new, full-day, comprehensive services that meet the needs of working families; and prepare children for the transition into preschool. This strategy – combined with an expansion of publicly funded preschool education for four-year olds – will ensure a cohesive and well-aligned system of early learning for children from birth to age five.
The President is proposing to expand the Administration’s evidence-based home visiting initiative, through which states are implementing voluntary programs that provide nurses, social workers, and other professionals to meet with at-risk families in their homes and connect them to assistance that impacts a child’s health, development, and ability to learn. These programs have been critical in improving maternal and child health outcomes in the early years, leaving long-lasting, positive impacts on parenting skills; children’s cognitive, language, and social-emotional development; and school readiness. This will help ensure that our most vulnerable Americans are on track from birth, and that later educational investments rest upon a strong foundation.


Our children are our future, early education will give our children a base, a starting point to grow. An educated child has the ability to give back to society as they age. They will be less of a burden and more of an asset to our future. Do not rule out a kindergartener, with the right start and continued education, well they could change the world.

Beearewhyain

(600 posts)
8. I Don't Think I Agree
Fri Apr 5, 2013, 07:09 PM
Apr 2013

Especially with the comparison with the health care overhaul. For many of us liberals the public option was our compromise but we would have much preferred some form of single payer. It struck us that the President should have started from a single payer position and then bargained down to the public option. However, he started at public option and then promptly dropped it giving us what was eventually passed. The impression was that of a poor negotiator and someone who may not be as dedicated to some ideals as we would prefer. But all in all, I'll take what was passed because it is still an improvement on what existed previously.

Which brings me to my second point. Health care and SS are vastly different from our perspective in that health care was an attempt at an improvement while SS is a fundamental EXISTING program necessary for even the most basic of social safety nets to be present. What the President has proposed is not a compromised policy for a new program but is tampering and weakening a foundational liberal program. For liberals like myself this is unacceptable.

Considering that SS has not increased the deficit and that, from a Keynesian perspective, austerity measures are counterproductive in this economy, you end up with what I would consider an ill timed and misguided proposal regardless of how much is cut. Not to mention a proposal that is counter to my and his professed ideological leanings.

Just my 2 cents.

B

Cha

(295,899 posts)
10. Interesting from Smartypants, she.. thank you.
Fri Apr 5, 2013, 07:33 PM
Apr 2013
Still, the poutrage about chained-CPI is likely to play into President Obama's hand. Jonathan Chait thinks the strategy of including it in a budget proposal is meant to shake up the media narrative he describes as "BipartisanThink" - in which both sides are blamed for intransigence. Outrage from the left helps cement the fact that one side is willing to make the difficult concessions that are necessary for compromise while we wait to see if anyone in the opposition is capable of doing so


thank you for the link regarding the President's pre-K Plan!

sheshe2

(83,325 posts)
12. As I have said to you before, Cha
Fri Apr 5, 2013, 07:58 PM
Apr 2013

Smartypants always has a twist in the subject. I like what she says and how she says it.

From her blog.
About Me:

About Me
I'm a political junkie, pragmatic progressive and Obama supporter who believes in the long game and is always looking for the big picture.

People who've only known me as an adult find it pretty hard to believe that I was actually pretty timid as a young child. But when my mother thought I was "mouthing off" to her (in other words, standing up for myself), she'd refer to me as Miss Smartypants. It was supposed to put me in my place. Imagine that...calling a little girl "smartypants" is supposed to be a put-down.

This is one of those things that got lost in the shuffle as I grew up. Then one day I ran across a children's picture book titled Princess Smartypants by Babette Cole. All of the sudden those childhood memories came back to me. So I read the book and fell in love with it. Without giving away the whole story, here's how it starts:


"Princess Smartypants wanted to live in a castle with her pets and do exactly as she pleased."


Those memories and the book made me realize that I wanted to embrace the "smartypants" in me.

I love it, Cha

Cha

(295,899 posts)
17. ".. believes in the long game".. and a Long strategy it is
Fri Apr 5, 2013, 09:00 PM
Apr 2013

for the President and his advisors. Others are content to froth and threaten to quit their voting rights to show off how loud they can whine. It worked so well in 2010.

I imagine smartypants was quite a handful for her mom! How wonderful for her she was able to finally embrace her intelligence and let the world in on it.

Another view to ponder.. the whole piece needs to be read but here's a snippet..

So let's recap. The Left's reactionaries would rather defend the failing status quo on the social safety net than:

•Add life to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.
•Wipe out poverty forever for the poorest when they retire after a lifetime of backbreaking, minimum wage work.
•Force pharmaceutical companies to stop raiding our treasury for seniors' medications.
•Ask the wealthiest seniors to pay a higher Medicare premium.
•Close tax loopholes for the rich.
•Institute universal preschool.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2013/04/for-ideologue-left-social-security.html

thank you again for smartypants, she.

sheshe2

(83,325 posts)
19. Bingo, Cha!
Fri Apr 5, 2013, 09:07 PM
Apr 2013
What's actually more evident is that Eric Kingson and Anna Galland are talking out of their posteriors, as is anyone hounding about how Barack Obama is the enemy of Social Security. Eric Kingson or his organization are not concerned about those who most need Social Security, neither are any of the loudmouths on the Lefty blogosphere. The only thing they are concerned about is fundraising off of the status quo. If that weren't the case, one of these concern trolls would have at least mentioned the following in passing.



Cha

(295,899 posts)
20. And, that "following" is..
Fri Apr 5, 2013, 09:20 PM
Apr 2013
Besides the tax increases that most Republicans continue to oppose, Mr. Obama’s budget will propose a new inflation formula that would have the effect of reducing cost-of-living payments for Social Security benefits, though with financial protections for low-income and very old beneficiaries, administration officials said.


It doesn't really seem to matter though.. the Cons will never go for it. But, it might make a difference in the Election of 2014. In spite of those who are saying they're going to be sitting it out again.

 

elehhhhna

(32,076 posts)
16. How does this argument even make sense?
Fri Apr 5, 2013, 08:01 PM
Apr 2013

" look to see if they are including what President Obama's proposal does to mitigate the effect it will have on the most vulnerable. I can guarantee you that they won't because no one has seen the details yet."


WTF?!!! Nothing to see here -- move along...!


 

awoke_in_2003

(34,582 posts)
18. Liberals got distracted over public option?...
Fri Apr 5, 2013, 09:05 PM
Apr 2013

No, congressional democrats started negotiations at the wrong point. They should have started at single payer, not public option. So, what did we get out of AHA? A mandate to buy a product from a predatory industry with almost zero regulation on said industry. Oh, the cannot deny you coverage bases on pre-existing conditions, but they can sure as shit screw the hell out of your wallet. There is a reason why their stocks increases after AHA's passage- they have a captive base that they can screw over for more profit.

Honeycombe8

(37,648 posts)
21. I don't see universal pre-k as a big deal. Not compared to cuts for the elderly & disabled & vets.
Fri Apr 5, 2013, 09:25 PM
Apr 2013

But I will agree that too much focus was placed on teh public option during the ACA negotiations, once the public option was out once and for all.

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