Now that Obama has killed Social Security and Medicare - what's next?

Oh wait...

You gotta know it is in the works.

Oh wait...

It's coming. He said so yesterday. He wants entitlements on the table.

and the answer is?















not

His words yesterday:

' I believe that we could have made the tough choices required -- on entitlement reform and tax reform -- right now,
rather than through a special congressional committee process"

http://www.cfnews13.com/article/news/2011/july/288405/President-Obamas-statement-on-tentative-debt-deal">Obama's statement

He is expecting the committee will cut entitlements in the next three months and that is what he wants.

and

projection fail

yup

Would you like to check back with me in say about six months?

I do not want to right about this, but it in the cards. Maybe the House can resist it, but this commission is
designed to force them into a yes vote on slicing and dicing entitlements. If you are missing this strategy,
you maybe dealing with cognitive dissonance. It is a common but understandable malady, on DU today.

to walk around for a long time before he succumbs, but he is dead from the moment he gets the dose.

We been dosed.

and I really think the Republicans are too stupid to get it. They only see that 600 billion will be taken away from Medicare over ten years and salivate, something they have in common with a lot of people on this board.

Yes, this compromise sucks but it's the best thing we can expect out of the clown farm known as the House of Representatives.

ignore list too

give the Red X to him - he's one of DU's best posters.

:rofl:

this stuff is killing DU

and did that kill DU

nope

that Obama has "killed Social Security and Medicare." This kind of hyperbole falls into the same category as "Death Panels."

It's not helpful.

Medicare is only up for grabs for 2% reductions to providers. Beneficiaries are completely off limits in this bill.

Your "death panels" analogy is quite apt.

:hi:

yup

Did they amend the Constitution too?

Oh wait

:D

Will they be given the power to pass their bill(s) on their own?

Without passage by the full House and Senate?

nope

Super Congress Bogeyman Fail

yup

Such as steep cuts to military pay, etc.

The progressive preferred plan is folded
in with those cuts, so as to ghettoize it
as an unacceptable alternative. That is
the trigger cuts that are "guarded from
Social Security and Medicare".

You see, the fact that Social Security and
Medicare would be protected in the trigger
mechanism if the commission fails (which it
wouldn't since Congress never votes down
bills when votes are forced and amendments
are taken off the table) is actually
PART of the poison pill.

creating chaos and fomenting fear is not good on either side.

That will force Congress to adopt the Commission recommendations instead.

SS and Medicaid are only protected in the poison pill, where the liberal
preferred scenario is ghettoed in with a bunch of poison pill recommendations
so they can claim they passed it, only to use it as a stick to ensure passage
of the reverse.

Progressives are so easily manipulated by simple parliamentary tricks, it seems.

These commissions always deadlock. The likelihood of Congressional action is slim, which would trigger the poison pill.

is the political kiss of death.

It refers to Obama's own words yesterday. He said he would have preferred that entitlement cuts be
in the initial deal rather than in the coming one. Of course he uses the slippery term reforms so
maybe you missed it.

Why would Social Security and Medicaid be walled off explicitly in the trigger if they are going to be cut in the proposal? Why would such specific provider-side cuts to Medicare be laid out in the trigger if they were going to gut it in the proposal?

Nobody who hates the deal even dares trying to explain this, for a very simple reason: the trigger mechanism functions to protect Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare from cuts, and does so rather explicitly. How so, you ask? The triggers as they are constituted provide no negative consequence for refusing to cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. Indeed, the across-the-board cuts are rather obviously *more desirable* than any possible proposed cuts to SS, Medicare, or Medicaid, making it easy for the Democrats on the Committee or the Democrats in the Congress to oppose any such proposal on the front end.

Here's how it works:

If you don't __________________________________________, we're going to institute 3% across the board cuts, but we're definitely not going to cut Social Security, Medicaid, or actual Medicare benefits.

That's how the trigger works. So, let's test it with these cuts that people are "expecting."


If you don't cut Social Security benefits by 20%, we're going to institute 3% across the board cuts, but we're definitely not going to cut Social Security, Medicaid, or actual Medicare benefits.

Does the trigger serve as any kind of threat or coercion in that case? No. It wouldn't make any sense to accept the Social Security cuts rather than the 3% across-the-board cuts. It's literally designed that way. Fill in the blank with other cuts to the Big 3. It doesn't work. The trigger mechanisms are designed to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

is this 2002 or what?

:shrug:

It currently doesn't address the question.

Read my OP:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1631040

That's neither here nor there, however. How do you explain that the trigger mechanisms make any Joint Cuts to Social Security LESS attractive than the trigger cuts? It is explicitly designed to protect Social Security, or SS wouldn't be walled off in the trigger.

to Congress.

Read the press release, or the CNN article.

And was clearly designed that way. It's actually MORE unacceptable to the GOP.

Look at the actual mechanisms.

Proof: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1630883&mesg_id=1631033

In its present form, there are zero cuts to SS and Medicare.

And cuts to Medicare providers only exist in the trigger.

I repeat, there are NO cuts to SS AT ALL.

I will amend my comment.

a great deal.

Like when people go over and see where the doofuses at FR are discussing massive revolts where they're going to "take back our country!!!". Haven't seen one yet.

Or even when DUers discuss staging huge marches on DC or crippling boycotts against various companies that piss them off. "Yeah!!! Come on people!!! We REALLY NEED to do __________(whatever)!"

yawn. A bunch of hot air, that's all it is.

So just because people "discuss" something, that doesn't mean it's going to happen.

because there is an un-named bipartisan committee that is supposed to work on more cuts, inculding entitlement and tax "reform."

Since their plan cannot be fillibustered, according to the deal, then all they need is 50 evil Senators for it to pass. Well, they have already got 43, so they only need seven more. They probably can count on Herb Kohl too since he is filthy rich and their plan is likely to give him huge benefits - at least if it follows the gang of six template. And Obama has shown no willingness to veto a gang of six plan.

Easy peasy

:hi:

:hi: