First of all, this isn't chess, this is poker, and the stakes are enormously high. Its gambling on the lives of Americans, and their quality of life. Gang of Six said I'll bet 2 trillion and raise the debt ceiling, with cuts to entitlements. Obama said I'll call you, and raise you 2 trillion in additional cuts, with cuts to entitlements that supposedly were "shaped in a way that saves the integrity of the system", whatever that means.
From the transcript of the press conference:
In addition, what we sought was revenues that were actually less than what the Gang of Six signed off on.
What Base is he playing to here? Oh, its the Wall Street base.
So let me reiterate what we were offering. We were offering a deal that called for as much discretionary savings as the Gang of Six. We were calling for taxes that were less than what the Gang of Six had proposed. And we were calling for modifications to entitlement programs, would have saved just as much over the 10-year window. In other words, this was an extraordinarily fair deal. If it was unbalanced, it was unbalanced in the direction of not enough revenue.
You heard that right...not enough revenue. Factor in the cuts to our social safety net, and you got a whopper all right.
Here's one of my favorite quotes:
But in the interest of being serious about deficit reduction, I was willing to take a lot of heat from my party — and I spoke to Democratic leaders yesterday, and although they didn’t sign off on a plan, they were willing to engage in serious negotiations, despite a lot of heat from a lot of interest groups around the country, in order to make sure that we actually dealt with this problem.
Interest groups....so the middle and lower classes are now interest groups. Guess we deserve that a bit when you leave most of your protesting to non-profits that organize slick campaigns. But yes, indeed, what is most important to Americans is that you, Mr. President, are serious about deficit reduction. Again I ask, what base is he playing to here?
Here is where he ties in deficit reduction to job creation. That's one for the books and deserves commentary? Thoughts?
In addition, if we can’t come up with a serious plan for actual deficit and debt reduction, and all we’re doing is extending the debt ceiling for another six, seven, eight months, then the probabilities of downgrading U.S. credit are increased, and that will be an additional cloud over the economy and make it more difficult for us and more difficult for businesses to create jobs that the American people so desperately need.
Here is where he continues to assume that he has solid backing on cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid from Americans. This is either delusional or propaganda. There is also an assumption that because there is a small increase in taxes on certain aspects of wealth, that we're all okay with cuts to our entitlements. Baloney:
And so the question is, what can you say yes to? Now, if their only answer is what they’ve presented, which is a package that would effectively require massive cuts to Social Security, to Medicare, to domestic spending, with no revenues whatsoever, not asking anything from the wealthiest in this country or corporations that have been making record profits — if that’s their only answer, then it’s going to be pretty difficult for us to figure out where to go. Because the fact of the matter is that’s what the American people are looking for, is some compromise, some willingness to put partisanship aside, some willingness to ignore talk radio or ignore activists in our respective bases, and do the right thing.
Here's my favorite question, from Scott Horsley, that produced quite a bit of discomfort on the face of the President:
Scott Horsley.
Q Mr. President, can you explain why you were offering a deal that was more generous than the Gang of Six, which you seemed to be embracing on Tuesday when you were here?
THE PRESIDENT: Because what had become apparent was that Speaker Boehner had some difficulty in his caucus. There are a group of his caucus that actually think default would be okay and have said that they would not vote for increasing the debt ceiling under any circumstances.
And so I understand how they get themselves stirred up and the sharp ideological lines that they’ve drawn. And ultimately, my responsibility is to make sure that we avoid extraordinary difficulties to American people and American businesses.
And so, unfortunately, when you’re in these negotiations you don’t get 100 percent of what you want. You may not even get 60 or 70 percent of what you want. But I was willing to try to persuade Democratic leadership as well as Democratic members of Congress that even a deal that is not as balanced as I think it should be is better than no deal at all. And I was willing to persuade Democrats that getting a handle on debt and deficit reduction is important to Democrats just as much as it’s important to Republicans — and, frankly, a lot of Democrats are persuaded by that.
My AA friends would call this "caring about Boehner's difficulty with his caucus" as co-dependency. That's Boehner's problem, Mr. President. Your job is to do the right thing for the majority, which should not involve touching our social safety net at a time when millions are out of work. Particularly social security, which is not tied to the deficit. What bullshit, Mr. President.
The best quote of the evening is a sure fire symptom of projection, or outright deception:
Now, what is absolutely true is we wanted more revenue than they had initially offered. But as you’ll see, the spending cuts that we were prepared to engage in were at least as significant as the spending cuts that you’ve seen in a whole range of bipartisan proposals, and we had basically agreed within $10 billion, $20 billion — we were within that range.
So that wasn’t the reason this thing broke down. We were consistent in saying that it was going to be important for us to have at least enough revenue that we could protect current beneficiaries of Social Security, for example, or current beneficiaries of Medicare; that we weren’t slashing Medicaid so sharply that states suddenly were going to have to throw people off the health care rolls. And we were consistent in that.
Obama is suggesting here that the revenues he proposed would "protect current beneficiaries of Social Security", and Medicare. That's laughable. It's jobs that would protect those programs, by enabling folks to pay the taxes to fund those programs. He says states wouldn't have to throw people off the health care rolls in his proposed cuts to Medicaid. I guess it boils down to who do you believe, the President, or this report on the effects on Medicaid of these proposed cuts, which suggest a rather drastic downsizing of the program, albeit more gradual than the republican proposals, but again, shifting responsibility to the states, many of which are already close to bankruptcy. Many more problems in store for Medicaid, in other words, if Obama's proposal is ultimately accepted:
Rather than dealing with the root causes of high Medicaid spending, the Obama administration proposes to cut $100 billion from Medicaid over the next decade, mostly by changing the way it pays states for the program. The biggest change would be to reimburse states at the same rate for all their Medicaid patients, unlike now, where states get a different rate for different populations, such as children or seniors. The new so-called “blended rate” would be set at a lower amount than current health spending. Like the Ryan plan, the proposal is simply a cut to states, albeit a much smaller one than Ryan proposed and without the loosening of rules on who and what to cover included in the Republican budget. States would still cut back on who and what it covers, if only to the extent allowed within the current rules. States would also cut payments to providers, which in many cases – particularly physicians, dentists and hospitals in some states – would make it harder for patients to get needed medical care.
I'm sure you have comments, so have at it.