Has Obama set GOP entitlement trap?
By: Glenn Thrush
Politico.com
February 16, 2011
Senior congressional Democrats were plenty nervous on the eve of President Barack Obama’s 2012 budget presentation, fretting that Obama would suddenly gain his nerve and decide to take on the issue that editorial pages ceaselessly debate but elected officials are wary to touch — entitlement reform.
They needn’t have worried. White House officials assured their friends on the Hill that Obama wouldn’t broach the subject, Democrats told POLITICO, and on Monday when he presented his budget the president conspicuously avoided addressing entitlements, despite citing them as the country’s major fiscal problem.
Obama’s decision to avoid entitlements was instantly deemed as irresponsible. Progressive blogger Andrew Sullivan interpreted the message as “screw you, suckers” to future generations. The usually Obama-friendly Washington Post editorial page pithily described him as “Punter-in-Chief.” Republicans expressed outrage.
But for Hill Democrats — so often at odds with Obama for the past two years — this omission was no sin. It was a gift, in their view, the setting of a political trap for a Republican Party divided between conservatives pushing for major changes to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and a GOP leadership wary of the political peril of tinkering with Americans’ retirement security.
(More here.)
Politico.com
February 16, 2011
Senior congressional Democrats were plenty nervous on the eve of President Barack Obama’s 2012 budget presentation, fretting that Obama would suddenly gain his nerve and decide to take on the issue that editorial pages ceaselessly debate but elected officials are wary to touch — entitlement reform.
They needn’t have worried. White House officials assured their friends on the Hill that Obama wouldn’t broach the subject, Democrats told POLITICO, and on Monday when he presented his budget the president conspicuously avoided addressing entitlements, despite citing them as the country’s major fiscal problem.
Obama’s decision to avoid entitlements was instantly deemed as irresponsible. Progressive blogger Andrew Sullivan interpreted the message as “screw you, suckers” to future generations. The usually Obama-friendly Washington Post editorial page pithily described him as “Punter-in-Chief.” Republicans expressed outrage.
But for Hill Democrats — so often at odds with Obama for the past two years — this omission was no sin. It was a gift, in their view, the setting of a political trap for a Republican Party divided between conservatives pushing for major changes to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and a GOP leadership wary of the political peril of tinkering with Americans’ retirement security.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
It is not a trap. Entitlements will be a complete disaster, more like a hell-hole than a trap if we do not take action. We have far to many politicians on both side of the aisle who have refused to make difficult decisions and far too many Americans who are quite happy nursing the entitlment teat. The weaning process will be painful but much better than the alternative.
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