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DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 11:15 AM Apr 2013

Democrats Need to Stop Attacking Obama’s Budget and Wake Up to Reality

by Robert Shrum Apr 14, 2013 4:45 AM EDT
The Republican jeremiads were expected—but why can’t liberals see the sense in the president’s not-at-all draconian budget proposals? Robert Shrum says it’s time to face reality
.

You would think President Obama was proposing to repeal the New Deal. (Well, actually, that’s Paul Ryan.)

This wasn’t the Republican reaction, of course, to a budget that was pre-dead on arrival, dismissed in advance by House Speaker John Boehner and disdained by the Tea-spooked Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who couldn’t take yes for an answer when the president called for the entitlement changes McConnell had previously promised “would get Republicans interested in new revenue.” Aside from the fiscal fallout of a failed budgetary process that could slow the economic recovery, the episode points to a likely and grim outcome of these two years—that not much will emerge living or lasting from this Congress.

And don’t just blame GOP members, largely trapped in their gerrymandered red districts, incapable of doing right even if they recognize it, as they cower before the threat of primary challenges. The Democratic base, and prominent Democrats in the Senate and House, rushed to scorn the president’s Social Security and Medicare reforms as a betrayal of progressive principle. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was “shocked,” which presumably means she hadn’t been reading the wave of advance stories on the Obama budget. Iowa’s Tom Harkin denounced “an unnecessary attack on a critical program.” And Rhode Island’s Sheldon Whitehouse insisted that Social Security “has no place in this debate over federal spending.”

That’s an amazing statement, given that Social Security and Medicare account for 35 percent of federal outlays, and the trust funds for both are in serious and not-so-long-term trouble. We are far from the bipartisan moment in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan, House Speaker Tip O’Neill, and Alan Greenspan rescued Social Security—by, yes, gradually raising the retirement age.

more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/14/democrats-need-to-stop-attacking-obama-s-budget-and-wake-up-to-reality.html
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Bluenorthwest

(45,319 posts)
2. Carvelle's partner. This is Bob Shurm, whose talents helped both Al Gore and John Kerry
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 11:28 AM
Apr 2013

avoid having to move to the White House. His advice often leads to his candidates losing to GW Bush, so take that advice with full knowledge of who is offering it.

still_one

(91,947 posts)
3. I was told the same thing when I argued that their should be a public option in the ACA. I am quite
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 11:53 AM
Apr 2013

tired of people telling other people what they should or should not do.

You have a view, fine, express, debate it, great, but everyone has the right to do that, even if it means criticizing the President.

It seems that the everyone including the President has lost track of the budget. The point was to REDUCE THE DEFICIT. HMMM, social security is NOT part of the deficit.

It is a separately funded program, that has been looted by the government to fight their wars. Perhaps they should stop STEALING from the fund, and then it would not have the issues, they are supposedly trying to rescue from

In fact it is solvent for the next 20 years, so perhaps they can focus on more immediate concerns

illegaloperation

(260 posts)
6. Well, I have to agree with some of these.
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 12:40 PM
Apr 2013

Medicare and Social Security are getting out of hand.

Lot of the money can see better use elsewhere: eg. public universities.

 

DemocraticProse

(28 posts)
7. Go ahead and put it on the backs of us in the millennial generation, I say...
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 01:10 PM
Apr 2013

The planet will be dead by then, anyway.

dmosh42

(2,217 posts)
8. Being one of the blue collar peasants on Soc. Sec. who was never beyond doing a sacrifice...
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 01:54 PM
Apr 2013

for the good old USA, I would gladly give a little more if it was done with the idea that "all men are created equal". But I do remember being asked to volunteer four years of active duty so many years ago, I gladly stepped forward and completed my duty as it was called. But, unfortunately, I found the 'equality' thing lacking, and then my time was something to be expected of people like me, but not of certain other classes. So here we are now, with billionaires and such widening the gap, being told that we should expect more of the same sacrifices made by the peasant classes, with the usual nothing for the country by the wealthy and privileged. Surely more drivel being handed out by some ass kissing messenger of our patrician class.

neverforget

(9,433 posts)
9. Shrum can stuff it. While he's asking the lower classes to do with less
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 02:01 PM
Apr 2013

maybe his class can step up and pay more instead of bitching about everyone else. Austerity doesn't work, see Europe.

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