Which means he didn’t want it that bad. He did the same thing in the Senate on the ethics bill, working with John McCAin until Senate leadership told him to stop. As Lindsey Graham said, “He folded like a lawn chair.”
But even if you think he really wants it that bad, he wants it in exchange for big tax hikes. Won’t happen. All the GOP has to do to get benefit cuts with no tax hikes is nothing. Benefits automatically drop by 20-25% when the trust fund runs out.
Nothing Graham says can be trusted. He is entirely driven by two emotions: abject terror, and the love that dare not speak its name.
Not a nice way to talk about a guy who actually has a record of working with, and accomplishing things, with the other party. And in that case, he’s right. The fact that Obama started out working with McCain on bipartisan ethics reform and backed off when Democratic leadership wanted him to sign on to their version is well established. Even if I’m wrong about him wanting to compromise, it’s very easy to warn him off that compromise. When Reid and Pelosi get into power plays with the President, they win.
I’m sure we’ll find a way to raise taxes on the rich before that happens.
I think you underestimate the political consequences of changing Social Security’s funding source. FDR made it the payroll tax for a reason. If you want benefits to be kept at the same levels as today, there’s no way around convincing workers to accept a large payroll tax increase. Which will not happen, because it’s about as high as people can tolerate. Boomers should have planned for this better.
The majority will readily accept making the SS payroll much more progressive, like the income tax is.
Which again, is a major change to the program. What makes SS viable is that it’s not a “poor folks program”, it’s a program that everyone benefits from who lives along enough to collect. Rich or poor, you gain. Once the rich start becoming net losers, it becomes a welfare program, at least in terms of the politics surrounding it.
And in news of “why it’s kinda of a drawback for Democrats to dominate the wealthy Northeast”, Northeastern Congressmen want a “donut hole” in the payroll tax so that people making between the current cap and like $250,000 don’t see their payroll tax go up. That’s a heck of a lot of your desired funding drying up there, and eliminating the cap never fixed 100% of the problem to begin with. So you’re still left with benefit cuts. If you concentrate THOSE at the top of the income scale too, then SS’s support among the wealthy class will evaporate.
I hate to break it to you, but nobody but the rich and their lackeys gives a shit about the economic issues of the rich. They’ve WON THE ECONOMIC LOTTO! They WON! We don’t need to coddle them, or worry about their welfare, because they’ve got the means to handle their own problems. You want to call Social Security a welfare program because the rich have to pay more than the poor, feel free. No one will care.
Oh, it matters a lot. Social Security and Medicare enjoy an exalted place in American politics due to the fact that everyone benefits. If it’s changed to make it so that only the poor and middle class benefit, then it’s basically food stamps, or at best, unemployment insurance.
And removing the cap doesn’t just make the top 1% net losers. It makes anyone over the cap a net loser. The cap is only $117,000. While I certainly wouldn’t call people making six figures “not rich”, you’re talking about an awful lot of people, and these people are overrepresented among voters and campaign donors.
28% of voters in 2012 made over $100K per year. Are you REALLY going to effectively cut their Social Security?
http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/race/president
Liberals may not like cutting Social Security across the board, but shared sacrifice will keep the program politically viable in a way that transforming it to a poor folks’ program will not. Besides, they can make a case for making other programs more generous to poor elderly folks. Perhaps create a bonus SS payment for elderly people with no other income but SS that is paid out of general revenues. That way you get the effect of taxing the rich more while preserving benefits, but the SS itself is unchanged. Only the bonus payment becomes a political target rather than the whole program.
I’ve noticed that the ONLY thing that Republicans, libertarians, the poor and the middle class ever show any interest in sharing with the poor and the middle class is sacrifice. Totally not buying this. Capping at 117K works for me.
The cap is already $117K. In order to solve SS’s deficit, you have to remove the cap entirely and hope for better than expected economic growth. If that doesn’t come through, you still end up cutting benefits a little.
Here’s something else we can expect: Climate-change deniers in control of key Senate committees. E.g., James Inhofe (R-Batshit) probably will chair the Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees the EPA.
True, but I’m not sure what difference it makes. Republicans disagree on climate change, but we all pretty much agree that Democrats’ oh so convenient plans that involve doing what they 'd do even in the absence of climate change are not the way to go.
What on the warming Earth are you talking about?!
The leadership that they will show in the next 2 year will be the one coming from the powerful groups that will want us to do nothing and gut the EPA.
And here is a preview of the mountain of stupid that will be “leading” us:
And the saddest was the would be leader of the senate Mitch McConnell supporting his denier position with an old lie from George Will, and lying about Many European nations when he claimed that no one is following this with solutions.
I repeat.
Republican victory bump.
So . . . what now?
A lot will depend on how willing the Obama is to be the Great Compromiser he once imagined himself to be. He was willing to give up Medicaid and Social Security for the sake of his Grand Bargain earlier, and in return Democrats got hammered by attack ads claiming the Democrats were willing to give up Social Security and Medicaid, something the Republicans would NEVER do (one billion rolleyes here). Maybe Obama will have learned his lesson, but I doubt it.
In general, expect a lot of One Percent friendly legislation. The Democrats’ financial backers want that, as do Obama’s, and although the American people don’t want it, it’ll get passed.
I don’t expect much movement on social issues like abortion, immigration and gay issues. There’ll be legislation, but everyone in Washington knows that those laws are the dog-and-pony shows that distract the voters while the really important stuff … the looting … goes on. The Democrats and Obama will show a lot more spine on these issues, though their desire to compromise might hurt them.
Oh, and our chances of getting stuck in another interminable Mideast adventure goes up now.
Basically, Obama is all we’ve got to protect us from an avalanche of bad legislation, and he’s a very weak reed, being a Reagan Republican and all.
Either nothing will change or everything will change. I’m so helpful.
In all seriousness though, I think this resets things in a way that 2012 and 2010 didn’t. Obama will never have another election, midterm or general. This is his Congress. He has to come to terms with them. Likewise, Republicans know that 2016 is a tough map. If they don’t govern in such a way that they appeal to moderate voters, then they will lose the Presidency, and they will lose the Senate.
Even the nuttiest of the nutty right-wingers knows that. So since they know that, what will they do about it?
Why? It doesn’t happen unless Obama wants it . . . and if Obama wants it, the Pubs don’t.