Will Energy Tax Increases & Reducing "Entitlements" Slam Older Americans ?

[terisan]

Taxes on energy may hurt retirees especially since raises in cost of energy are not factored into colas. Also Social Security is referred to by Obama staff as an entitlement and refers to finding politically feasible ways to reduce social security.


David Brooks after discussion with Obama staff excerpts from his NYT column today:


............... The budget, they continue, isn’t some grand transformation of America. It raises taxes on energy and offsets them with tax cuts for the middle class................................

Third, they say, Republicans should welcome the budget’s health care ideas. The Medicare reform represents a big cut in entitlement spending. It amounts to means-testing the system. It introduces more competition and cuts corporate welfare. These are all Republican ideas......

Over the long run, Obama has insisted that health care reform will be deficit-neutral. Many experts believe this will force Democrats to reduce the tax exemption for employee insurance benefits in order to raise revenue. This idea is at the core of most conservative reform proposals.......


He is extremely committed to entitlement reform and is plotting politically feasible ways to reduce Social Security as well as health spending. The White House folks didn’t say this, but I got the impression they’d be willing to raise taxes on the bottom 95 percent of earners as part of an overall package.......

Fifth, the Obama folks feel they spend as much time resisting liberal ideas as enacting them. The president resisted union pressure and capped pay increases for government workers. He resisted efforts to create mandatory veterans’ health benefits. The administration plans to tackle the suspiciously large increase in the number of people claiming disability benefits.....................


<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/opinion/06brooks.html>

[indepat]

1. Every American with a lick of sense and a modicum of knowledge should have realized from the git-go

that the 'pukes insanely irresponsible fiscal policies and unfair tax policies since the early days of the gipper, together with mushrooming defense budgets, an eventual perpetual wars of aggression, and coupled with a laissez-faire approach to governance (malfeasance, misfeasance and nonfeasance) would one day in the not-too-distant future threaten the Federal government's willingness and/or ability to meet its "entitlement" obligation, and this by design with malice of forethought. :P

[terisan]

2. We still have choices-we can choose bailouts for Insurers(AIG) or paying citizens what is owed.