Obama Did NOT Denounce Raising the Retirement Age Today

[jtown1123]

For everyone that read the earlier thread with the Daily Kos article, please read the Washington Post piece by Lori Montgomery that was linked very carefully: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

Nowhere does President Obama say he will NOT raise the retirement age for Social Security. All the article states is that it is unlikely the President will mention any changes to Social Security in his State of the Union Speech.


Excerpt:


"Administration officials cautioned that Obama is not necessarily taking benefit cuts off the table. They said his vision for deficit reduction will become clearer with the release of his 2012 budget request in mid-February and in the months beyond, as both parties test the limits for compromise.

'This is a president who, in last year's budget, instituted some tough measures. . . . You've seen proposals already this year to freeze civilian pay for government employees," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Monday. "And the president, again, will spend some time, not just tomorrow night and not just at the introduction of the budget, but throughout the year, talking about what we have to do, again, to make progress on our spending."



I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer here but by no means should we all of a sudden say hooray and stop pressuring the White House to stick up for Social Security.

Here is an excerpt of an interview with White House Official Melody Barnes on Andrea Mitchell Reports:

This exchange happened a few minutes ago on Andrea Mitchell’s show after Melody Barnes announced the spending freeze:


Mitchell: I think you've just made some news in talking about the Pentagon freeze and as well the five year discretionary spending freeze, but we all know you've got to do what Willie Sutton did, you've got to , you know you rob a bank because that's where it is, that's where the money is and you've got to deal with Social Security, Medicare and huge entitlement growth if you're really going to get spending cut and that's not addressing any of that.

Barnes: remember this is the president who put in place the fiscal commission. He did that because he is serious...

Mitchell: But he hasn't responded Melody! He has not yet told us what he thinks of their recommendations.

Barnes: No actually he has responded Andrea, After the commission came out with his report, he thanked them for the work they had done. He asked our colleague jack Lew, the office of Management and Budget to talk to the members of the commission to analyze their ideas so that we can go forward. And in a couple of weeks, the president is going to be putting forth a budget that will articulate very clearly where we want to go in the future. It will be a balance of the right investments, that I just talked about and dealing with our deficit spending in a very serious way.

Mitchell: Well if he's responded other than to thank them and commend them for their work, we've yet to hear that. And earlier today your colleague Valerie Jarret said that response to the deficit commission will be in the budget itself, which we of yet ... of course that will be in February

Barnes: Just a few weeks.

See the video of the interview here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/41256284#412562...

[emulatorloo]

1. Any possibility of waiting a few hours to hear the speech?

For what it is worth, NYT article said the other day he will be coming out strong re protecting social security. from a white house source.

[Sheepshank]

2. nah...some like to prognosticate

and tout them as if they were fact.

[jtown1123]

4. I'm merely trying to clear up the confusion that he today said he wouldn't embrace that proposal

He never ever said that.

[emulatorloo]

6. read this "Obama draws line in sand on Social Security"

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2014028449_obamabenefits25.html

WASHINGTON — President Obama has decided not to endorse his deficit commission's recommendation to increase the retirement age, and otherwise reduce Social Security benefits, cheering liberals and drawing a stark line between the White House and key Republicans in Congress.

[jtown1123]

9. Read this. From the article you posted:

"Administration officials said Obama is unlikely to specifically endorse any of the deficit commission's recommendations Tuesday night but cautioned he is unlikely to rule them off the table, either. On Social Security, for example, he is likely to urge lawmakers to work together to make the program solvent, without going into details, according to congressional sources."

FYI, that Seattle Times was a rewrite of the Lori Montgomery WaPo piece. Papers do this all the time and change the headline. This time, the headline was pretty misleading.

Please read the original WaPo article, which the Seattle Times one was based off of. All it said is that he won't endorse changes in his SOTU speech tonight. Administration officials cautioned that nothing is off the table for his budget, however.

[emulatorloo]

18. Again first sentence

"President Obama has decided not to endorse his deficit commission's recommendation to increase the retirement age, and otherwise reduce Social Security benefits, cheering liberals and drawing a stark line between the White House and key Republicans in Congress."

[jtown1123]

22. That was a mistake on the reporter's side. Very misleading.

If you read the rest of the article, it is clear that only applies to the SOTU. His officials have said so.

[emulatorloo]

25. you are tying yourself up in knots.

[jtown1123]

27. How so? At the end of the day, Administration officials have said

these proposals are not "off the table." I'm not sure how many times I have to post the same quote from them.

Please show me the quote where Obama says raising the retirement age is "off the table." I didn't see it, did you?

[Name removed]

35. Deleted message

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

[jtown1123]

28. Here it is. Notice everything refers to the speech, not his budget plans:

Obama won't endorse raising retirement age or reducing Social Security benefits


By Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 25, 2011; 6:22 AM

More than two months after his deficit commission first laid out a plan for reining in the national debt, President Obama has yet to embrace any of its controversial provisions - and he is unlikely to break that silence Tuesday night.

The direction of Obama's speech became apparent over the weekend, when the White House informed Democratic lawmakers and advocates for the elderly that he would not endorse the commission's recommendation to raise the retirement age and make other cuts to Social Security - the single largest federal program.

....

Administration officials cautioned that Obama is not necessarily taking benefit cuts off the table. They said his vision for deficit reduction will become clearer with the release of his 2012 budget request in mid-February and in the months beyond, as both parties test the limits for compromise.

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/24/AR2011012403472.html

[emulatorloo]

36. So Obama has secret evil budget plan?

So I guess we are in for more speculative Op-eds for DU to go into meltdown mode over

[Sheepshank]

11. yes...that's exactly what your heading states *rolleyes*

Obama Did NOT Denounce Raising the Retirement Age Today

perhpas waiting for the actual SOTU address would have given that heading more credence.

[jtown1123]

12. Why are you being so negative? All I said was that Obama

never took raising the retirement age off the table. Your comments are adding nothing to this discussion.

[jtown1123]

13. His officials met with seniors advocacy groups and told them

he would not specifically endorse the fiscal commissions proposals in his SOTU. I can wait and see, but I think I can take his officials' words at face value, especially considering they took the trouble to tell people that.

[jtown1123]

3. I don't think he's going to say anything about SS tonight but I wanted

to correct everyone who claimed today that Obama said "No" to raising the retirement age. It just didn't happen. We won't know anything about his thoughts on SS until he releases his budget. That was pretty clear in the article.

[SidDithers]

5. "We won't know anything about his thoughts on SS until he releases his budget."...

I wish you'd been posting that statement in every "Obama's gonna gut SS!!" thread posted 'round here these past few weeks (months?).

Sid

[jtown1123]

7. We won't know for sure, but it still doesn't hurt to remind him of his

campaign promises. He was strong on SS on the campaign and I hope, despite the anti-SS advisors he has, he sticks to his guns.

[snooper2]

8. I keep seeing these threads talking about the SOTU speech

Isn't that tonight? Or did they do it during lunch time today?

[jtown1123]

10. It's tonight but for some reason pple think because he has signalled

he wont mention SS or the fiscal commissions recommendations tonight, that they are magically off the table for future budget discussions...simply not true.

[spanone]

14. he also didn't say that he wouldn't say that someday he might say something

about anything.

[sufrommich]

15. That's about the gist of it. nt

[jtown1123]

16. There is a very popular thread on DU where people think Obama

said "no" to raising the retirement age. I am trying to point out that this is not true. Your dismissal is very telling.

[emulatorloo]

20. The Speech starts at 9pm Eastern. Only 6 hours away.

[jonnyblitz]

21. exactly. would you trust a Scientologist to give you an honest

assessment of L. Ron Hubbard? :crazy:

[EFerrari]

34. 110 votes for a misleading headline.

Wishful thinking, maybe. :(

[emulatorloo]

19. and he did not say it today to Andrea Mitchell!

[jtown1123]

23. Huh? The WH Official said in the Andrea Mitchell interview

that is he looking at the fiscal commission proposals for his budget.

[emulatorloo]

24. What else did the commission cover?

Surely there are other recommendations that could be cherry-picked that have nothing to do with Social Security

[jtown1123]

26. It covered other things, but the SS proposals were very harmful

Also, it cut Medicare drastically. The only thing I could agree with would be cutting down military spending. Obama has said several times you cannot cut the deficit without reforming "entitlements." I pray to God he does not mean SS as it doesn't even add to the deficit. It worries me that he thinks it does.

[Bluebear]

29. That's accurate reporting!

:)

[phleshdef]

17. I don't think he denounced shooting kittens in the face either.

[EFerrari]

30. The poster is right. The headline was misleading.

He won't endorse AND he won't take it off the table. The underlying WaPo article said BOTH but the headline only highlighted ONE part of the message.

[jtown1123]

31. Thank you! I am not sure why the facts are so confusing.

[EFerrari]

33. I made a nuisance of myself last night saying this over and over.

It's right there in the WaPo article for people who want to see it.

I'm disappointed because it would be nice not to have to worry about them raising retirement age at the same time as worrying about unemployment. :(

[phleshdef]

37. Your argument = He won't endorse or take off the table shooting kittens in the face...

...and therefore we must be suspicious. Its no deeper than that nor does it have any more merit than that, perhaps less.

[Kennah]

32. That's stupid!

The retirement age is already death. How can they raise it?

[truedelphi]

38. Ssh! They might be listening and then they'll have

yet another great idea.