<snip>
The real goal of this hysteria is the dismantling, or at least scaling back, of the core social programs that working people depend upon: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It is important to realize that this is not a traditional left-right battle. Polls consistently show that people across the political spectrum overwhelmingly support these programs and do not want to see them cut. Even the vast majority of Tea Party Republicans support these programs .Rather than being a left-right split, this is a top-bottom split.
There is a bipartisan consensus among the elites that these programs should be cut. The guiding philosophy of this drive is that public money that goes to programs for middle-income and poor people is money that could be in the pockets of the wealthy. For this reason, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are an offense to their sensibilities. They are programs that help ordinary working people, not the rich, therefore these programs conflict directly with their philosophy of government.The remarkable part of this story is that elites are effectively using their incompetence in managing the economy as the core of their argument for cutting these social programs. After all, no one was talking about cutting these programs until the deficit exploded and the reason the deficit exploded was that the collapse of the housing bubble wrecked the economy.
If these elites had a clue about the economy, they never would have allowed the bubble to grow to such dangerous levels. The economy would not have collapsed, the deficit would be manageable and no one would be discussing cuts to Social Security and the other programs. <snip>
There's much, much more at the link:
http://www.nationofchange.org/economic-illiterates-step-attack-social-security-and-medicare-1312846689