The Deficit Hawks' Attack on Our Entitlements

[Lasher]

With the enactment of a large economic stimulus package, fiscal conservatives are using the temporary deficit increase to attack a perennial target -- Social Security and Medicare. The private-equity investor Peter G. Peterson, who launched a billion-dollar foundation last year to warn that America faces $56.4 trillion in "unfunded liabilities," is a case in point. Supposedly, these costs will depress economic growth and crowd out other needed outlays, such as investments in the young. The remedy: big cuts in programs for the elderly.

The Peterson Foundation is joined by leading "blue dog" (anti-deficit) Democrats such as House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt of South Carolina and his counterpart in the Senate, Kent Conrad of North Dakota. The deficit hawks are promoting a "grand bargain" in which a bipartisan commission enacts spending caps on social insurance as the offset for current deficits.

President Obama's economic advisers devised today's White House fiscal responsibility summit to signal that the president takes the deficit seriously and to lay the groundwork for such a bipartisan deal. Originally, Peterson was slated to be a featured speaker.

But Capitol Hill sources say that Democratic congressional leaders were skeptical of the strategy. The summit has been reduced to a lower-profile, half-day event; Peterson will attend but no longer has top billing, and Obama reportedly is lukewarm about the idea of a commission.

Obama should indeed be wary of such a plan, and official briefings on his first budget suggest that he will drastically reduce the deficit by 2013, but without going after social insurance.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/22/AR2009022202003.html

[corruptmewithpower]

1. I for one need my SS and Medicare to live.

Any politician to threaten these programs will not live to see his agenda enacted.

[Triana]

2. good that he's lukewarm about this commission and that Peterson no longer

got top billing.

One of the things I recently wrote whitehouse.gov about (policy) was this "commission" and Peterson et al.

I sent a link to a Nation article and asked that they PLEASE see that Obama read it and BEWARE. I told them that if they mess with SS they are going to have a LOT of pissed off voters out here. Americans do NOT take lightly to having their SS messed with. I asked that the President be made aware of these nefarious characters trying to cut/gut SS, Medicare, etc. Americans know SS is solvent with just a few adjustments. Thom Hartmann had a good piece on this a few days ago. Nobody "out here" is buying the Peterson et al bunk and President Obama needs to be very leary of it as well.

Maybe they showed him some of those emails I know they've been getting - not just from me, but from a LOT of people about SS.

WRITE TO THEM FOLKS - let them know what we're thinking - and that we're not stupid and we're not buying what Peterson and Co. are selling and that President Obama shouldn't either.

[Name removed]

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[The Wizard]

5. You're kidding right

worldnetdaily.com is about as reliable a Pox Newz and Limbaugh.
If we're to have health care for all a national data base would enhance health care.
VA health care uses a database that can be accessed from any VA health care facility. It works fine and saves lives.
It's a right wing fear tactic. If the wingnuts are so concerned about medical records why do they support unfettered wire tapping and cameras in our homes?

[Lasher]

7. Looks like somebody got a large supreme.

To go. :-)

[farmbo]

4. "Deficit Hawks"? Give me a break! They voted $1Trillion of our kids' money for Iraq...

... and now they're thumping their chests and whining about spending $700 Billion here at home.

:nuke:

[Lasher]

6. Exactly right.

Plenty of money for billionaire tax breaks, an endless unprovoked war, and propping up incompetent overpaid CEOs. But we have to let the elderly die because we can't afford to keep our promises to them, and we can't invest in infrastructure unless it's in some other country.