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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Soul Crusher on April 10, 2013, 03:26:15 PM
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IT'S OFFICIAL: One Of Liberals' Worst Fears About Obama Came True
Brett LoGiurato|46 minutes ago|1,335|3
AP
In December, Max Richtman attended a meeting at the White House with other progressive groups during the negotiations to avert the fiscal cliff.
As the president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, Richtman only wanted to tell President Barack Obama one thing: No cuts in either of the two programs.
"He told me, 'We agree with you,'" Richtman said today, recalling the meeting. "Well, I guess something has changed since then."
What's changed is that Obama has officially embraced a proposal to cut Social Security benefits known as "chained CPI," which recalculates the growth of benefits by using an index that doesn't rise as quickly as inflation.
While the administration is portraying chained CPI as a concession to find compromise with Republicans, the proposal has infuriated Obama's liberal base.
And for many of these progressives, it confirms concerns that they have harbored for some time.
Eric Kingson, co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security Coalition and a professor at Syracuse University, told Business Insider Wednesday that Obama has "waffled" on Social Security since taking office in 2009 — despite a 2008 speech to the AARP convention in which then-Senator Obama criticized the same plan he's proposing now.
"He has never been forthright about this issue," Kingson said. "He has always been reticent to speak out about protecting Social Security."
Kingson suggested that the Obama administration was being "disingenuous" about the actual scope of the cuts, using Washington-speak to refer to it as a "tweak" or a simple change in the way benefits are calculated.
But he has long suspected Obama has wanted to slash Social Security benefits.
"I really think he believes that for whatever reason, this program needs to be cut," Kingson said. "But what he's doing is disrespectful — it's undermining the institution."
Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said he believes Obama is offering the proposal in an attempt to be "serious" and appeal to Beltway types who crave bipartisanship. But he thinks Obama has the wrong definition of being serious.
"You piss on the people who care about Social Security, then you're serious," Baker said.
SEE ALSO: Obama's new budget is giving Republicans precisely what they asked for >
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/chained-cpi-social-security-cuts-obama-budget-liberals-2013-4#ixzz2Q6OA59rW
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IT'S OFFICIAL: One Of Liberals' Worst Fears About Obama Came True
Brett LoGiurato|46 minutes ago|1,335|3
AP
In December, Max Richtman attended a meeting at the White House with other progressive groups during the negotiations to avert the fiscal cliff.
As the president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, Richtman only wanted to tell President Barack Obama one thing: No cuts in either of the two programs.
"He told me, 'We agree with you,'" Richtman said today, recalling the meeting. "Well, I guess something has changed since then."
What's changed is that Obama has officially embraced a proposal to cut Social Security benefits known as "chained CPI," which recalculates the growth of benefits by using an index that doesn't rise as quickly as inflation.
While the administration is portraying chained CPI as a concession to find compromise with Republicans, the proposal has infuriated Obama's liberal base.
And for many of these progressives, it confirms concerns that they have harbored for some time.
Eric Kingson, co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security Coalition and a professor at Syracuse University, told Business Insider Wednesday that Obama has "waffled" on Social Security since taking office in 2009 — despite a 2008 speech to the AARP convention in which then-Senator Obama criticized the same plan he's proposing now.
"He has never been forthright about this issue," Kingson said. "He has always been reticent to speak out about protecting Social Security."
Kingson suggested that the Obama administration was being "disingenuous" about the actual scope of the cuts, using Washington-speak to refer to it as a "tweak" or a simple change in the way benefits are calculated.
But he has long suspected Obama has wanted to slash Social Security benefits.
"I really think he believes that for whatever reason, this program needs to be cut," Kingson said. "But what he's doing is disrespectful — it's undermining the institution."
Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said he believes Obama is offering the proposal in an attempt to be "serious" and appeal to Beltway types who crave bipartisanship. But he thinks Obama has the wrong definition of being serious.
"You piss on the people who care about Social Security, then you're serious," Baker said.
SEE ALSO: Obama's new budget is giving Republicans precisely what they asked for >
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/chained-cpi-social-security-cuts-obama-budget-liberals-2013-4#ixzz2Q6OA59rW
Once again, we ain't the type to say, "We told you so!!. But.......
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6 Ways Obama's Budget Is Worse Than Everyone Thinks
Posted 04/10/2013 07:04 PM ET
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Fiscal Policy: Shorn of its accounting gimmicks, the president's budget isn't a "balanced" plan to get the debt crisis under control. It's a monument to fiscal irresponsibility.
With much fanfare and a lot of media hype, President Obama unveiled his latest budget plan — two months late. An IBD review of Obama's budget finds that, among other things, it:
• Boosts spending and deficits over the next two years. Obama's own budget numbers show that he wants to hike spending over the next two years by $247 billion compared with the "baseline," which even after his proposed new tax hikes would mean $157 billion in additional red ink.
Obama claims he'll get tough on spending and deficits later, but every budget expert knows boosting spending today only makes it harder to cut later.
• Vastly exaggerates spending cuts. The press has widely reported that Obama's budget would cut spending a total of $1.2 trillion over the next decade. But Obama's own budget shows that he actually cuts spending a mere $186 billion. (The relevant tables can be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2014/assets/tables.pdf on Pages 187-190.)
Obama inflates his claimed savings by first canceling the automatic sequester spending cuts he previously signed into law, then reclaiming them as new savings, and by adding in cuts in interest payments on the debt.
• Relies almost entirely on tax hikes. Obama's budget shows his plan would increase revenues by $1.14 trillion over the next decade. That means his budget proposes $6 in new taxes for every $1 in spending cuts.
• Cuts the deficit less than claimed. "My budget will reduce our deficits by nearly another $2 trillion," Obama said Wednesday. But his budget shows total deficit reduction over the next decade would be just $1.4 trillion. Plus, deficits start rising again after 2018.
• Creates a new entitlement without a reliable means to pay for it. Obama claims he can finance a new $76 billion "preschool for all" program by raising tobacco taxes again. But after an initial spike, tobacco tax revenues will start trending downward year after year as more people quit smoking, while the costs of this new program will keep climbing.
The last time Obama hiked tobacco taxes — to pay for an expansion of Medicaid — revenues came in $2.2 billion less than expected.
• Boosts taxes on the middle class. Obama proposes to change the government's "consumer price index" in a way that will lower the official inflation rate. He's selling it as a way to cut Social Security annual "cost of living" adjustments, which are based on the CPI.
But because his "chained CPI" would also apply to annual tax bracket adjustments, it will end up hiking taxes by $124 billion — mainly on the middle class — over the next decade through bracket creep, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
In his remarks Wednesday after releasing his 65-day-overdue budget, Obama claimed: "The numbers work. There's not a lot of smoke and mirrors in here."
Fact is, if it weren't for smoke and mirrors, Obama would have no budget plan at all.
Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/041013-651427-obama-budget-is-worse-than-everyone-thinks.htm#ixzz2QA3s6l00
Follow us: @IBDinvestors on Twitter | InvestorsBusinessDaily on Facebook
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/11/obama-approval-poll_n_3059796.html
LOL!!!! Meldown city
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But, I thought things were so "MUCH BETTER" than when Obama first took office. That's what Straw claims.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/11/obama-chained-cpi_n_3063841.html
LOL - meltdown
You voted for it - FU and eat shit