Claiming the Republican agenda as his own | SocialistWorker.org

Now Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has proposed a complicated "Plan B," which involves giving Obama the authority to raise the debt ceiling with a minority of votes in Congress in three separate installments, as long as he proposes spending cuts to offset the increase.

McConnell said he made the proposal to calm financial markets alarmed by the prospect of a U.S. government default on its debt. But since spending cuts wouldn't be mandatory under the McConnell plan, it isn't clear if House Republicans will go along with the deal.

Given the pressure from Wall Street and big business to avoid a potentially catastrophic default, the McConnell proposal may go through. This would move the budget fight to a series of debates over appropriations bills in Congress over the rest of the year.

But by offering a "grand bargain" to Republicans, Obama has already done incalculable political damage. He has legitimized the idea of cuts to Social Security and Medicare--big cuts. After decades of being the "third rail of American politics," as the cliché went, Social Security is now slated for the chopping block, thanks to a liberal Democratic president.

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THE SIZE of the cuts Obama was willing to give up to Republicans as part of the debt-ceiling negotiations is staggering.

According to Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, Obama's offer included a two-year increase in the eligibility age for the Medicare health program for the elderly; a change in the calculation of inflation that would slash $200 billion from Social Security benefits; and a tax scheme that would raise $800 billion in additional revenues, but in return would preempt the Bush tax cuts for the super-rich from expiring--which would mean settling for just half the amount that would be collected if the Bush tax cuts were simply allowed to end.

via socialistworker.org

Comments

[Intellectualanarchy.blogspot.com]

more proof (as if we needed more) that Obama isn't 'progressive' - he's a rethuglican...

we needed (voted for) Roosevelt and instead got Bush III...