I am not here to write a big diary attempting to discuss the merits of the proposed entitlement reforms currently being discussed.
However, I think he community does itself a great disservice by continuing to state things that are definitively not true. Such as...it is an anonymous leak so it can't be true.
Just stop....
“The President has always said everything should be on the table,” deputy communications director Jen Psaki told ABC News this morning in an interview in her office down the hall from the Oval Office.
Psaki would not give specifics of any presidential offers on the table as talks move to a higher level, but she did say the President is ready to put his hand on entitlements often called the dangerous “third rail” of politics.
“We wish there was an easy solution to bringing down the deficit and doing it in a responsible way but unfortunately, there isn't.” Psaki said. “That’s why we need to go after some of the sacred cows in politics, things like entitlement reform, areas like changing the tax code. That’s a conversation the president is willing to have and he hopeful the Republicans will come to the table willing to have it, as well.”
What reforms?
As one senior administration official told me: “We need to do something unthinkable on entitlements. They need to do something unthinkable on taxes.”
Another White House official acknowledged that Democrats won’t like the proposed reductions in Social Security and Medicare (an understatement), but that the changes would be modest compared to what Republicans have proposed in the Paul Ryan budget plan.
“We’ll never agree to anything close to the GOP plan to voucherize Medicare,” said one White House official.
Among the spending reductions the president and the speaker have discussed is reducing the annual cost of living increase (COLA) for Social Security and Medicare as well as increasing the level of income subject to the Social Security FICA tax (the tax currently applies to an individual’s first $106,800 of income).
How nice that they won't voucherize Medicare...
Will Republicans agree...I doubt it. I suspect this will all end up right where it left off when Eric Cantor did his temper tantrum kabuki routine. But I just want to end this theater of the absurd on sourcing, leaking, trial balloons.
Discuss the merits. End this incessant nonsense about how leaks can't be trusted and how we don't know if the WH will address entitlements.
It has been hiding in plain sight. The President said so at the State of the Union.
To put us on solid ground, we should also find a bipartisan solution to strengthen Social Security for future generations. And we must do it without putting at risk current retirees, the most vulnerable, or people with disabilities; without slashing benefits for future generations; and without subjecting Americans’ guaranteed retirement income to the whims of the stock market.
This is almost identical to what is being reported today. For better or worse, many decided this was evidence that those who said the President would put SS on the table at the SOTU were wrong, when it was clear at that moment where we were headed.
In any event, feel free to discuss the current proposal here or elsewhere. But please, for the love of FSM, stop saying the leaks are not sourced.