Seniors, Poor Are Prime Targets of Obama Budget Cuts

[Cali_Democrat]

http://www.cnbc.com/id/42522977

Seniors, Poor Are Prime Targets of Obama Budget Cuts
Published: Sunday, 10 Apr 2011 | 5:35 PM ET
By: AP

President Obama will lay out new plans this week to reduce the federal deficit in part by seeking cuts to government programs for seniors and the poor, a top political adviser said Sunday, adding that Americans expect both sides to work together.

"You're going to have to look at Medicare and Medicaid and see what kind of savings you can get," Obama adviser David Plouffe said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

The presidential speech on Wednesday will come during a week in which official Washington pivots from a painful standoff over this year's budget to next year's and beyond, focusing on competing plans to shore up the nation's fiscal health in the long term.

<snip>

The president, Plouffe said, would address ways to reduce the deficit and the long-term, $14 trillion debt. He gave few specifics, but he said the president believes taxes should go up on higher-income Americans and that cuts to Medicare and Medicaid will be necessary.

Read more...http://www.cnbc.com/id/42522977

[ProSense]

1. I like this

headline better.

Obama to deliver speech on deficit reduction this week

<...>

Obama will address cuts to defense and domestic spending, as well as what to do with the growing entitlement programs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, Plouffe said. He will talk about "dollar amounts" over "a period of years."

<...>

Plouffe said on ABC's This Week With Christiane Amanpour that Obama does not believe Social Security to be "a significant driver in our deficit in the short term." But he added, "if there's a way to strengthen Social Security that doesn't hurt retirees and beneficiaries in the short term, and doesn't slash benefits in the long term, he's willing to work with Congress on this."

As part of deficit reduction, Obama will continue to fight for the expiration of George W. Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers, Plouffe said. Obama and congressional Republicans agreed to a two-year extension of those tax cuts in December in order to prevent expiration of all the Bush tax cuts for all taxpayers.

In his speech, Obama will say that "people like him .., who've been very fortunate in life, have the ability to pay a little bit more," Plouffe said on NBC's Meet The Press.

<...>

[krawhitham]

29. +1

Damn this place is becoming a cesspool



Screw the facts lets spin it so Obama looks bad, I'm use to that on Fox it is just sad to see it here at DU all the time



ProSense you are rapidly becoming the exception to the rule around here, you do good work

[Bake]

34. "Continue the fight" to eliminate Bush tax cuts????

When did he start to fight to eliminate those? He already gave those up. Kicking it down the road doesn't count, by the way ...

They're now the Obama Tax Cuts for the Rich.

Bake

[and-justice-for-all]

38. "address cuts to defense" I like the way that sounds..

It is his check mate I think; The repukes want to cut social services, ok Obama says "then your going to have to cut defense spending too."

[zigzag69]

2. It's either Medicare/Medicaid or the military

Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, and the DOD are the 3 biggest drains on the federal budget.

Cutting Medicare/Medicaid is probably less offensive than Social Security. And cutting the military is like challenging the NRA politically.

[madamesilverspurs]

3. Social Security

is NOT a drain. It has been sold as such by the republicans who have been trying to destroy it since its inception. Like Medicare, SS has been successful.

Try again.

-

[zigzag69]

5. Wrong.

http://www.whitcam.com/research/archives/248

Defense: 22%
Social security: 21%
Medicare/Medicaid: 21%
Everything else: 18%

[high density]

6. Social security and medicare have their own funding source

We pay separate payroll taxes for those. Republicans love to confuse the issue by acting as if it's all one big pot of money.

[zigzag69]

7. Tell that to the voting public

[high density]

8. Half the voting public probably can't name the vice president

What is your point?

[zigzag69]

9. The point is...

The politicians are going to try and sell these cuts as a deficit reduction measure. Because this will help the insurance companies, and because they are not going to touch defense. The voting public will not understand the subtleties.

[ProudDad]

21. Nice to see you've succumbed to the republican big lies...

Enjoy your short stay, troll...

[phleshdef]

18. Well, ultimately it is all one big pot of money.

People get taxed. That money it dealt out to various government programs. I get what you are saying in that social security and medicare are paid for by taxes that are separated out from all the others, specifically for the purposes of social security and medicare. But the government has taken money out of social security and put it into the general fund anyway. In practice, its all been treated as one big pot and for the average tax payer, it might as well be.

Whether we perceive it as one big pot of money or not is fairly irrelevant. Social Security and Medicare should always receive a certain percentage of tax revenues each year and that percentage should be higher than it is right now, especially on the larger incomes which don't pay jack after a certain cap is hit.

[ProSense]

14. Wrong. That's a percentage of the budget.

That has nothing to do with adding to the deficit.

There Is Still No Such Thing As Socialsecuritymedicareandmedicaid

Dean Baker: FactCheck Gets It Wrong on Social Security and the Deficit

[ProudDad]

20. As someone who was lucky enough to live long enough to get Medicare

I say "FUCK YOU!!!"

Cutting the war machine is the ONLY solution to this shit...

Along with removing the profit motive from health care -- remove the health insurance mafia and Big PhRMA from driving the USAmerican sick care system!!!

We pay twice as much for a sick system...

[Sheepshank]

33. Actually to look at only spending as the deficit problem in inaccurate

the biggest drain on the system is the extended tax cuts to the rich. It's bigger than the military spending.

[ProudDad]

36. Not really

But you do have a good idea, I'd go after the rich assholes hammer and tong, too... :hi:

But, bush Tax cuts for the rich = $70,000,000,000 per year...

Wasteful fucking war machine = $1,200,000,000,000 per year...

I think the latter is bigger...

[Sheepshank]

40. I think you are including the full cost of having a military and the wars

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3036

[ProudDad]

41. Yep, all the costs of the war machine... (n/t)

[Sheepshank]

45. Then your statement is misleading

the 'wars' are not the biggest expense. But I don't expect you will want to admit that.

Your latest statement seems to indicate that what you really want is not just the wars to end (btw, a noble endeavor to be sure), but also you think the US should abandon all and every single military personnel and property and equipment? Not sure that vunerablitity is all that attractive to me.

[ProudDad]

46. "you think the US should abandon all and every single military personnel and property and equipment?

No, that's your bullshit warped strawman view of what I'm saying...

The war machine and the foundries of war and violence ARE the greatest Federal Expense...

I think that cutting the entire war budget, that is ALL war and violence related expenditures by 75% would solve the deficit problem, provide the funds for USAmerican to create a domestic society worth emulating and seriously cut down on the overall violence in the world.

USAmerica is the number one purveyor of death and the tools of death.

THAT'S "why they hate us"...

[ProudDad]

42. duplicate

funky internet access tonight...

[high density]

4. That's the way to win votes

Force people to choose between a Republican and a Republican.

[frazzled]

10. "getting savings out of Medicare/Medicaid" doesn't mean cutting to seniors and poor

It can mean better administration of the programs (reducing redundancy in testing, for example; better communications between caregivers), and smarter payment to hospitals and doctors. They are not talking about reducing benefits to people, but rather about finding ways to make medicine more efficient and effective for the price. Every economist, and especially medical economist, agrees this MUST be done.

God, how people twist here.

[zigzag69]

13. There's always ways to make the programs more efficient.

But why no mention of ways to make the military more efficient and less wasteful? I heard of several military progams that were allowed to go forward even though the military said they were not needed.

[frazzled]

15. This administration is massively cutting the Pentagon budget, too

More than any modern administration before it. Are you guys forgetting news from just 3, 6, 9 months ago so quickly?

[ProudDad]

22. "Getting savings out of Medicare/Medicaid"

DOES mean cutting to seniors and poor...

In the past few years it has meant higher deductibles and co-pays so that seniors like me have to deal with collection agencies since we can't FUCKING AFFORD THE HIGHER DEDUCTIBLES AND CO-PAYS that the craven democrats have allowed the republicans to impose...

The ONLY way to make "medicine more efficient and effective for the price" is to remove the leeches in the insurance and drug industries through a STRICTLY REGULATED form of IMPROVED MEDICARE FOR ALL -- removal of insurance companies from the equation...!!!

God, how people just skim the surface here...

[FormerDittoHead]

31. You got it. Sad to see others whose minds only work toward 'selling' something.

HOW can we EVER get Democrats to do the right thing (progressive) if we're spending half our time praising them for being Republicans?

[golfguru]

11. Yap, no raise in my SS for 2 years

while gas prices have doubled in 2 years, food prices sky rocketing,
health care costs galloping....but seniors don't need any of those, do they?

[ProudDad]

23. Apparently not in Obama-world (n/t)

[golfguru]

12. dupl

self-delete

[FrenchieCat]

16. I take what the AP and the CNBC whore with a grain of salt....

Guess by now they know if they can bastardize an interview enough,
those big mouth netrooters tools will drink it up with a straw...and do a
big belch afterwards.

[Cali_Democrat]

17. When you hear David Plouffe say...

"You're going to have to look at Medicare and Medicaid and see what kind of savings you can get"

What does he mean by savings?

[ProudDad]

24. Higher Deductibles -- Higher Co-Pays -- Higher Premiums

Since Obama and the craven Dems didn't touch the real reason USAmerican Sick Care costs keep rising exponentially -- PROFIT for corporations...

Hospital chains, insurance companies and drug companies -- the most profitable "industries" in USAmerica...

The "Health Insurance and Big PhRMA Stimulus Act of 2010" Not only left profits untouched but actually fed more hundreds of billions of dollars to the leeches in the long run (part of which will go to lobby for even more!)...

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

27. There is a ton of waste in Medicare. Ask any Doctor.

[ProudDad]

37. I know many doctors, I've worked with them on Single-Payer, etc.

And I live with an RN...

They are unanimous in the opinion that it's the for-profit corporations that are the major drains on the system...

Medicare is one of the most efficient and least "wasteful" of all government programs and is a HELL of a lot more efficient and less wasteful than private sick care insurance!

For instance, one doctor I know has had to hire a half dozen clerks to deal with the 3000 different "plans" that he has to bill...and one slight mistake and he wait's longer for payment...

He'd trade all that in an INSTANT for Single-Payer or Medicare for All...

Please stop parroting right-wing bullshit, ok?

[sad sally]

39. Add the fools who say, just let people buy insurance across State

lines and those half dozen clerks will become a full dozen who will need to learn all the State insurance laws. This is what a small private practice doctor's office says (one of a few still in existence).

What Obama and the Dems passed wasn't health care by a stretch - it was insurance care - take care of those "poor" insurance companies - SICKO!

[ProudDad]

43. Exactly

:hi:

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

26. I CAN USE CAPS, TOO! Obama was able to get some defense cuts in the deal, by the way.

[ProudDad]

28. No you're 100% wrong!!!

They pretended to "cut" the INCREASE in the war budget so that it will "grow less" than he originally "asked for"...

(which was WAY TOO FUCKING MUCH!)

If the war budget isn't SLASHED by at least 40-50% no real reduction in deficit can be realized...

In addition, if it WERE cut by about 50%, USAmerica would be "safer" than before...

[Hawkowl]

30. +1000 .nt

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

25. yet another post of the same debunked spin. Try again, dude.

I like how you cut out the part where Plouffe says that the elderly won't be targeted.

That would disprove your entire premise, wouldn't it.

[ProudDad]

35. If you're over 62, you're lucky

If you're under 62 you are seriously deluded in defending these jerks since they're going to SCREW YOU!!!

[Sheepshank]

32. Unrec for misleading and making it up and twisting the words....as you go along

Since before Obama took office, he has suggested there is waste, inefficiency and fraud from within the system. Fraud and processing waste that totals millions of dollars. He was going to work on it. I hope he does create some efficiency and get rid of ambiguous red tape and medical fraud.

You may wish for something different.

[ProudDad]

44. Rec for pointing out that Obama is buying into the republican meme

that social programs are "problems"...

[JoePhilly]

47. Obama hates Seniors, poor ... and puppies.

[ProudDad]

48. Naw, he just thinks that rich people "contribute more"... (n/t)