So Obama was asked a question about SS in his townhall and my ears perked up. SS is what worries me in these "bipartisan talks", much more than cuts to Medicare. The President and Democrats have basically drawn lines in the sand that they can't walk back on those programs and they will be fought over in 2012. SS on the other hand has been consistently a target of the Gang of Six, which has Obama's closest ally on Capitol Hill, Dick Durbin, on it.
Anyway, when Obama was asked about SS and deficit he made 3 key points:
1)It's not the current driver of our deficit
2)It should not be part of this deficit debate and is a separate issue
3)It will be solvent for the next 75 years and only needs "minor tweaks"
4)A tweak he supports is raising the payroll cap from 105,000...he used the example of Warren Buffet only paying SS taxes on his first 100,000 and nothing on his next 40 Billion.
This is a great answer, and imo, raising the payroll tax is a MUCH better solution than doing nothing. As always is the case with Obama, his starting positions are at least 80% of the time fine with us. Its how easily he moves from them thats the problem.
But hey, I'll take this for now, at least.
UPDATE: http://www.reuters.com/...