Guess who’s gunning for your Social Security…
In setting up his National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, Barack Obama is again playing coy in public, but his intentions are widely understood among Washington insiders. The president intends to offer Social Security as a sacrificial lamb to entice conservative deficit hawks into a grand bipartisan compromise in which Democrats agree to cut Social Security benefits for future retirees while Republicans accede to significant tax increases to reduce government red ink.
Obama’s commission is the vehicle created to achieve this deal. He ducks questions about his preferences, saying only that “everything has to be on the table.” But White House lieutenants are privately talking up a bargain along those lines. They are telling anxious liberals to trust the president to make only moderate cuts. Better to have Democrats cut Social Security, Obama advisers say, than leave the task to bloodthirsty Republicans.</em>
“Trust the president”? What fucking nonsense is that? I’ve paid into the social security system my entire working life, having no say in the matter. And now you want to dick with my benefits to shut up a bunch of greedy, lying Republicans? Guess you really don’t want to serve two terms, do ya Captain Hopey?
Tell ya what. You let Bush’s tax cuts expire as planned, and stop the wars, and we can talk about a reduction in benefits…maybe. But since Washington has no intent on doing either of those things, it will be a brief conversation I suspect.
