Going down with what should be a sinking ship, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
says that ending Medicare, as the House Republican budget would do, is "on the table" for Senate Republicans.
Pressed by host David Gregory whether the Medicare proposal would ultimately be dumped in negotiations with the White House, McConnell emphatically denied the notion.
"No," he said. "It's on the table."
Again, this Medicare plan should be a sinking ship for Republicans, and will be provided Dems stay away from any Medicare benefits cuts in their debt ceiling and budget negotiations. There's some indication that they might just be willing to trade it way. That's what Greg Sargent is hearing.
[I]t’s now clear that Dems think it’s politically impossible not to accede to the GOP demand for deep cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.
And so, with the Biden-led deficit negotiations set to resume this week, Mitch McConnell has now begun insisting that big Medicare cuts will be necessary in exchange for GOP support for the debt ceiling hike. Thanks to their willingness to draw a hard line at the outset, Republicans now appear poised to win big concessions in exchange for supporting something that they and everyone else have already said is inevitable.
As I reported on Friday, some Dems are insisting that there will be no Democratic support for any reductions in Medicare benefits in the Biden-negotiated compromise. But it may be too late for Dems to draw any hard lines. It’s unclear whether Dems will hold fast behind this vow and how it can be squared with the GOP’s insistence on deep cuts in exchange for the debt ceiling hike and with the obvious Dem eagerness to reach a deal. This is the dynamic to watch this week.
The Ryan plan as it exists now won't pass, that's a given. But not passing the Ryan plan won't count as "saving Medicare" if there are benefit cuts in the core program. It's not too late for Dems to draw a hard line, though it might be too late for too many of them to harden their spines. They've got huge majorities of public opinion behind them. Americans aren't clamoring for the Republican plan, they're clamoring for a hard line against it, for Medicare to be protected, for taxes on the wealthy to be raised. It's the perfect set up for 2012, if Dems just don't blow it.