White House, Republicans use debt deadline to prepare historic cuts in Medicare and Medicaid

[Hannah Bell]

Following Thursday’s White House meeting, Republican senators insisted that any agreement would have to include sweeping cuts in Medicare and Medicaid as well as severe reductions in discretionary social programs such as food stamps, home heating assistance, education and housing.

Speaking for the Obama administration, Vice President Joseph Biden reassured the Republicans and big business that “everything was on the table” in the debt ceiling talks, including Medicare. Biden made his remarks following the third meeting of a group of Democratic and Republican lawmakers working with him on an agreement to raise the debt ceiling and impose austerity measures.

Neither the politicians nor the media bother to explain why, in a country where the richest 1 percent of the population controls some $16 trillion—40 percent of all household wealth and more than enough to cover the national debt—it is the working people and the poor who must be stripped of health care and other social services. And this in the midst of a desperate social crisis precipitated by the speculation and swindling of the banks.

Obama’s meeting with Republican senators Thursday followed a meeting the previous day with Senate Democrats at which the president cautioned against “drawing lines in the sand” in talks with Republicans on raising the debt ceiling. Such deference to the most right-wing sections of the political establishment—a hallmark of Obama and his administration—has, as always, encouraged them to press their demands more insistently.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/may2011/budg-m14.shtml

[pacalo]

1. I hope I'm right, but I think Joe's bluffing the Republicans because it's the only way to

deal with them until it's time for action. I'm basing this on how Obama made a fool out of Paul Ryan.

[C_U_L8R]

2. Let the Republicans over-reach

and then club them over the head with their own over-reachiness.

I like it.

[SidDithers]

3. Unrec for wsws...nt

Sid

[pot]

5. I'm new, can you explain why that site is bad?

And why it is worthy of unrec? Thanks in advance.

[kentuck]

6. They're socialists.

We hate socialists.

[pot]

7. I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not.

Just because it comes from a socialist website, that makes it bad? I read the article and didn't see anything that was factually wrong in it.

[kentuck]

4. I think it might be a trap for the Repubs..

Get 'em on record. If somehow they could get it thru the Senate, the President could veto it. But it is on the record. Let them defend it at election time.

[GeorgeGist]

8. Protect Big Business ...

at your peril, President Obama.