Republicans keep asking, “Where is the president’s plan?” for spending cuts. Well, Democrats can see the plan taking shape and they are hotter than last week’s weather. In addition to more than $1 trillion in cuts to discretionary spending, President Obama is willing to give Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) an additional $650 billion in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
This is the political gamble of a lifetime.
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Now, in the middle of the Washington debt-ceiling drama, Obama has put Democrats in the perilous political position of taking responsibility for entitlement cuts.
And last week, the White House began to feel the sting of opposition from Democrats. On Friday, liberal activist groups including MoveOn.org, Democracy for America, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and the AFL-CIO coordinated calls to Democratic members of Congress.
The Service Employees International Union asked 400,000 supporters to make contact with Democratic legislators to stop “deep cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security benefits without asking for an ounce of sacrifice from corporations and millionaires.”
The largest political group in the country, AARP, blasted the reforms proposed by the president as cuts to the social safety net programs key to its retiree membership.
The irony here is that Obama has invited this political backlash, but Republicans still will not make a deal. They will never allow policy fixes needed to save these imperiled programs, no matter how “conservative” those fixes may be.
Ultimately, Republicans do not want to give Obama the monumental political victory of being the president who saved Social Security and Medicare.
Shame on them.
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