Here is the full context of Pres. Obama's comment on "trimming benefits"

[Zenlitened]

The comment came in a response to a reporter's question about the $4 trillion size of the debt limit deal Mr. Obama favors.

From the official WH transcript of today's news conference:

Q Do you think he’ll come back to the $4 trillion deal?

THE PRESIDENT: I think Speaker Boehner has been very sincere about trying to do something big. I think he’d like to do something big. His politics within his caucus are very difficult -- you’re right. And this is part of the problem with a political process where folks are rewarded for saying irresponsible things to win elections or obtain short-term political gain, when we actually are in a position to try to do something hard we haven’t always laid the groundwork for. And I think that it’s going to take some work on his side, but, look, it’s also going to take some work on our side, in order to get this thing done.

I mean, the vast majority of Democrats on Capitol Hill would prefer not to have to do anything on entitlements; would prefer, frankly, not to have to do anything on some of these debt and deficit problems. And I’m sympathetic to their concerns, because they’re looking after folks who are already hurting and already vulnerable, and there are a lot of families out there and seniors who are dependant on some of these programs.

And what I’ve tried to explain to them is, number one, if you look at the numbers, then Medicare in particular will run out of money and we will not be able to sustain that program no matter how much taxes go up. I mean, it’s not an option for us to just sit by and do nothing. And if you’re a progressive who cares about the integrity of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, and believes that it is part of what makes our country great that we look after our seniors and we look after the most vulnerable, then we have an obligation to make sure that we make those changes that are required to make it sustainable over the long term.

And if you’re a progressive that cares about investments in Head Start and student loan programs and medical research and infrastructure, we’re not going to be able to make progress on those areas if we haven’t gotten our fiscal house in order.

So the argument I’m making to my party is, the values we care about -- making sure that everybody in this country has a shot at the American Dream and everybody is out there with the opportunity to succeed if they work hard and live a responsible life, and that government has a role to play in providing some of that opportunity through things like student loans and making sure that our roads and highways and airports are functioning, and making sure that we’re investing in research and development for the high-tech jobs of the future -- if you care about those things, then you’ve got to be interested in figuring out how do we pay for that in a responsible way.

And so, yeah, we’re going to have a sales job; this is not pleasant. It is hard to persuade people to do hard stuff that entails trimming benefits and increasing revenues. But the reason we’ve got a problem right now is people keep on avoiding hard things, and I think now is the time for us to go ahead and take it on.

Link:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/07/11/press-conference-president

[DeSwiss]

1. ''But the reason we’ve got a problem right now is people keep on avoiding hard things..."

Well if it's the "hard things" you want to tackle then start with cutting the DEFENSE BUDGET!!!

- Oh yeah. Excuse me. I forgot that's not hard, it's impossible.......

[MADem]

3. It would not surprise me if one of the reasons Panetta made the slide over to DOD

had to do with his deep knowledge and skill when it comes to hacking away at fatty waste and leaving the lean/mean. He's played a role in this kind of thing before, when he was a Congressman.

So you never know...you may get your wish.

However, if you dump hundreds of thousands of servicemembers on the economy right now, all demobbed with no retirement benefits, all looking for work, what do you think that's gonna do to the overall picture in the US? DOD, for a time, is going to have to act as a welfare agency while a drawdown takes place.

[Zenlitened]

10. Cutting the defense budget does NOT = dismissing servicemembers

Billions of dollars could be saved by bringing the troops home... and keeping them on the military payroll for as long as they wish to remain in the armed forces.

[MADem]

16. Sorry, you are mistaken. We don't bring troops home to have them sit on their asses.

That's been the paradigm ALWAYS. They demobbed after WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, and Bush the Elder did the honors after the end of the Cold War.

The biggest slice of the Pentagon budget isn't planes, ships or drones, ya know. It's PEOPLE.

People who need paychecks, people who are reassigned every two to four years, with PCS costs ranging from ten to forty grand a move, depending on size of family; people (and their family members) who get sick and need medical care, people who get sick and are medically retired with a paycheck for the rest of their lives; people who do a full 20 to 30 years of service and get a regular retirement....starting to get the picture?

PEOPLE stuff is the great sucking noise--NOT equipment. When the DOD starts cutting, the FIRST place they look is at a little number called "end strength." We've robbed the Navy to pay the Army, robbed the Air Force to pay the Marines, and upped the total end strength number a time or two in the past decade or so.

Those end strength figures are the first to take the chop. And ya know how they'll do it? They'll start enforcing standards. The term for this is "Force Shaping."

You mark my words on this--in the decade in front of us, absent a Great War, you will see articles in the newspaper that say something like "Afgan Vet with Five Deployments Booted Out For Overweight" or words to that effect. They'll cut the "fatties," and the "slowpokes" (people who can't pass the PT test), and then they'll start looking at even minor "standards of conduct" violations as justifications for throwing people out on their asses. They'll drug test like crazy, they will make the promotion tests harder (it's up or out), they will shrink the cutoff numbers so fewer people are eligible for promotion, and they'll probably cough up another TERA (Temporary Early Retirement Authority) to get people with fifteen years or more to make the leap and bail out for a smaller retirement check. They will realign commands, every planning and policy wonk in active, reserve and guard commands will be scouring their billet structure and picking out the billets that they can afford to lose (because they will be given a quota to cut "x" number or "HQ" -- or some other asshole up the chain -- will do it for them), and all the while, automation in every possible area will increase (like it already has in the pay/personnel arena).

Once they are no longer needed, they're dumped. And facts are, "wartime" personnel often lack the diplomacy, nuance, and ability to navigate backbiting office politics, so the real warriors are often disproportionately cut. The people who can write a good instruction, who know how to prepare a good Congressional brief--particularly one that gets 'em more funding, and the ones who look good and can schmooze are often the ones who survive.

This isn't idle chit-chat on my part. I've both been there and done that. It's an ugly business.

[Zenlitened]

18. But all that you describe is a choice. And the choice can be made to keep folks on...

...and still save significant amounts of money.

[MADem]

19. No, it's not a choice. If you keep them on, you don't save any money.

They need to be housed, fed, sent to the doc and dentist, and they need to have WORK to do. We can't very well have them invade Mexico as "busy work" now, can we?

They need to have their dependents housed as well, and sent to school (not all bases have on-base schools, and did you know that DOD pays civilian school districts for the impact that military children have on their districts?), and doc'd and dentist'd as well. The bases where they live/work need to be maintained. Someone has to pay the gas, electric and phone at all those workcenters, as well as the janitors and maintenance staff (servicemembers don't do that crap in the 21st Century military). This stuff ain't free.

I will tell you this, in straightforward fashion: Your idea is a pipe dream. It will not happen. There will be a drawdown if we bring forces home in large numbers, and it will take place over a three to seven year period, depending on the numbers brought back home and how fast the flow through the pipeline is.

There will be real anger and hurt feelings amongst some, elation at being able to TERA out early for others.

But bringing everyone home to sit around on their asses is, to be blunt, a non-starter (don't even try to invent "social programs" work they might do--posse comitatus laws and the unions will not have that). Those servicemen and women, when they do come home, will be competing with other Americans for JOBS (that don't quite exist yet...but hopefully will when they start shipping 'em home).

[Zenlitened]

22. Your statement is just plain false: "If you keep them on, you don't save any money." - n/t

[MADem]

24. No, it isn't false, but thanks for playing.

I used to do that unsavory work for a living, I know what I'm talking about.

You want to spin fantasies, go right ahead--but it ain't the real world, and it never will be.

[Zenlitened]

25. In the "real world," to use your phrase, American taxpayers do not fund...

...vast shipments of fuel to U.S. troops all over Iraq and Afghanistan... if there are no U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To name one example that's been in the news lately. (Link below.)

Now, the price tag of moving all this fuel may be up for discussion, but I think we can agree that it's not free, no?

And that if the troops were brought home, the money spent on moving fuel would... not be spent? That the money, whatever the figure is, would in fact be saved?

:shrug:

Link:
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137414737/among-the-costs-of-war-20b-in-air-conditioning



http://www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137414737/among-the-costs-of-war-20b-in-air-conditioning

[MADem]

26. No, that's not true. You make assumptions that suit your worldview.

You don't think a big chunk of that fuel allowance was shaved off of other services, in particular, the USN and USAF? If you don't think that, think again.

What will happen after the soldiers come home is that the SAILORS will be deploying more robustly, and the USAF will get more cockpit time (along with Naval air). To do that, guess what you need?

A bit o'gas and go.

[Zenlitened]

27. And the severely wounded? While they were getting shot up in Iraq or Afghanistan...

...was the "allowance" of guys getting shot up shaved off elsewhere?

American taxpayers will (and rightfully so) pay vastly increased medical costs for the care of severely wounded veterans, for decades to come.

If the troops come home from Iraq and Afghanistan, they will... stop being shot up in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sparing not only life and limb, but the very real and measurable financial costs of medical care.

It's funny that you write, "You make assumptions that suit your worldview" and then proceed directly to declaring what will and will not happen next, what choices will and will not be made. In other words, making assumptions that suit your worldview.

This is simple math, not a matter of worldviews. There are financial costs to waging wars overseas, and these costs will be diminished or not incurred in the first place once the troops come home. If we so choose.

[MADem]

29. Yes, it was. Ever heard of the "Blue To Green" program? Look it up.

That "End Strength" I was talking about? In addition to plussing up the total number of people who are allowed on active duty (a number set by CONGRESS, you see), it also references the total number of people in each branch. The Navy and USAF suffered Congressionally-mandated mini-drawdowns, in order to "plus up" the Army and USMC. In order to allow mid-grade Sailors and airmen the opportunity to finish out their careers, they came up with a "Blue to Green" program where they could swap their Navy/Air Force "blue" uniforms for Army green. They had to go to a modified version of boot camp again (to learn Army customs and ranks, and so forth), but they kept their paygrade.

So you see, this is not "simple math," and it isn't "my" worldview--this is the US government's "worldview,"--it is how DOD runs, and this is how Congress works when they are making defense allocations. But hey, keep shooting your mouth off with snarky insinuations about me, like I'm saying all this to be "difficult" or something --it makes no difference to me one way or another. I am telling you, this is how they do it. This is how they will do it when we draw down post Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan. Why? Because it WORKS. It's worked since the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, for heaven's sake. We aren't a country that has a huge standing army sitting around on its ass for no good reason--that's Turkey, that's North Korea....not the USA.

You did get one thing right--costs do indeed go down once we stop waging wars. But the first cut, the deepest cut, is ALWAYS personnel, because it realizes the largest immediate savings to the taxpayers and the federal budget.

You can argue about it all you want, but that's simple fact. It's also simple economics.

[Zenlitened]

30. Again, everything you describe is a CHOICE, not an immutable law of nature.

We can make a DIFFERENT CHOICE this time, for now, based on our current circumstances.

Is that so hard to comprehend?

[MADem]

32. And Congress can "choose" to give every American a pretty pony--but it ain't happening.

What's hard to comprehend is your insistence on an unfeasible fairy tale scenario that would bleed the defense budget dry while not getting any bang for the buck.

I live in the real world, I've done this rather difficult line of work. You just don't know what you're talking about and you plainly don't understand the economics of a drawdown. No Congress would "choose" to waste taxpayer money in the manner you suggest.

[DeSwiss]

31. Ha! A likely story.

As with any of the below fractured fairy tales we've heard. Any one of which if they had been followed-through beyond the "campaign promise stage" would have provided jobs for many:

"....create jobs building solar panels and wind turbines and the fuel-efficient cars of tomorrow. Jobs that will help us end our dependence on foreign oil and may save the planet in the process. Rebuilding our crumbling roads and schools and bridges...." "....so we can have a new electricity grid and bring renewable energy to population centers here in Indiana and across America. Build an American infrastructure for the 21st century." - Barack Obama, 2008

"....that tired, worn-out old theory that says, that says we should give more to billionaires and big corporations and hope that prosperity will trickle-down on everybody else. The last thing... the last thing we can afford is four more years where no one in Washington is watching anyone on Wall Street because politicians and lobbyists killed common-sense regulations. Those are the theories that got us into this mess. They haven't worked and it is time for change, and that's why I'm running for President of the United States of America." - Barack Obama, 2008

"...bailout Wall Street banks. As President I will insure the financial rescue plan helps stop foreclosures and protects your money, instead of enriching CEOs. And I'll put in place the common-sense regulations that I've been calling for throughout this campaign. So that Wall Street can never cause a crisis like this again. That's the change we need." - Barack Obama, 2008

"It is absolutely true that NAFTA was a mistake." - Barack Obama, 2008

All above quotes were excerpted from Barack Obama campaign speeches and interviews as shown in the documentary http://vimeo.com/20355767">"Lifting the Veil: Obama and the Failure of Capitalist Democracy"

- Besides, the MIC never shrinks -- it only gets bigger....

[MADem]

34. Every single road in New England, it seems, is being repaired under

the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Bridges, too.

So....not a fairy tale, so much....

Actually, the MIC does shrink, at times. It shrank after WW1, after WW2, after Vietnam (those were the "Go Navy--Go Hungry" days) and it shrank in a big way during the Bush The Elder/Clinton drawdown. Ronald Reagan had a goal of a 600 ship Navy as part of his Cold War strategy, and he almost got there. By the time the drawdown was underway, USN had fewer than 300 ships in its active inventory.

Right now, though, it is quite bloated, and mostly on the Army side of things, but that wasn't always the case. Between personnel spending (both uniformed and contract personnel) and equipment, they're spending money hand over fist.

[Empowerer]

2. How wonderful to have a President whp speaks not just in full sentences

but in full, coherent, eloquent paragraphs.

[Tennessee Gal]

4. Isn't that wonderful.

No more of "put food on your family" and other such nonsense.

[murielm99]

5. Too bad he didn't actually say anything.

Nothing there tells us what trimming benefits means.

How do seniors live if Medicare and Social Security benefits are cut or delayed? How do they eat and pay for medical care? How many seniors who have worked hard all their lives will go bankrupt?

If that happens to me, can I go sleep on the floor at the White House?

[Tennessee Gal]

9. He said plenty, but apparently none of it would ever satisfy you.

Quote: In reference to the social safety net, he used these words: "preserve the integrity of the programs and keep our sacred trust with our seniors, but make sure those programs were there for not just this generation but for the next generation;"

[murielm99]

14. Goodie. Will you let me sleep on your floor?

Will you feed me?

I am a former treasurer and chairman of our county party. I am a current precinct committeeman. I will be going to governor's day here in August, and they will hear plenty from me.

If they raise the Medicare age, I will not vote for Obama. If Durbin has a hand in it, I will not vote for him, either.

If they want money, and I have given a lot of it over the years, too bad. If they want door knockers, signs in the yard, walkers in parades, they can go to hell.

I am calling Durbin's office tomorrow. I know who to speak to there. I am acquainted with most of his Illinois staff.

This is a line in the sand for me.

I was born a Democrat. I will not vote for a repub, but I will not vote for any Democrat who does this, if they do it.

[cate94]

35. Exactly

Perfectly stated.

They called last night asking me to voluteer for Obama's campaign.

I told them I wasn't even sure if I would vote for him.

It depends on the outcome of these negotiations.

Since Obama maintains there are no "sacred cows", I don't hold out much hope that he will stand up for us.

I won't vote for a for a Republican, even if they have a "D" next to their name.

[MADem]

17. +1 nt

[MNBrewer]

7. sorry, but speaks in paragraphs?

[Vattel]

6. He's talking about entitlements.

"I mean, the vast majority of Democrats on Capitol Hill would prefer not to have to do anything on entitlements."

[robinlynne]

8. As long as you repeal all the tax cuts first, and stop the wars, and take back

the money Halliburton got for driving empty trucks around in Iraq, oh and the 3 trillion missing form the Pentagon, and the money Goldman Sachs took from the taxpayers, THEN we can talk about medicare and social security, cool Mr Pres?

[MNBrewer]

11. Oh, LOL!

People say the funniest things, sometimes!

(sadly, that's what should happen, but won't... looking forward, and all)

[robinlynne]

12. I'm not joking. I'm quite serious.

[MNBrewer]

28. I believe you, and agree

I just think it's funny that more DU'ers don't think the same thing. (sigh)

[eleny]

13. Well said

All the anxiety this bullshit is causing is inexcusable as well, imo.

[Armstead]

15. You want to do some hard stuff that matters? Let's tame us some corporations.

Oh, silly me.

It's only the stuff that's hard for liberals and the middle class that matters.

[polichick]

21. Really - how about ending some unnecessary wars too?!

[Armstead]

23. That too

[ZombieHorde]

20. Recommended, but because I like what President Obama has said.

Recommended for the full quote, which is a little different than what I was led to believe.

The actual quote doesn't really say much of anything other than negotiations are hard.

[ChrisBorg]

33. Medicare in particular will run out of money and we will not be able to sustain that program

Medicare in particular will run out of money and we will not be able to sustain that program no matter how much taxes go up.



So that insists on benefit cuts.