EZRA KLEIN: The TRICK Washington Is Using To CUT Social Security and Medicare

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27. Because Social Security is popular, as are the rest of the Federal Entitlements.

When the GOP calls for "Entitlement cuts", no one hears, Social Security, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Veteran's Benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, Student loans, Food Stamps or even welfare for children, they hear "Welfare" and they are willing to cut "Welfare" for adults.

The problem is the federal government (except for Food Stamps) has NEVER paid for welfare for adults (The closest the Federal have come to in SSI, and then only for people that can show that due to medical reasons they can NOT work). Thus when the GOP say they want to cut "Entitlements" they also do NOT want to cut Social Security, Veteran's Benefits, SSI, Medicare, Medicaid, Student loans, Food Stamps or even welfare for children. Thus there is NOTHING to cut AND not come out as a someone taking money from people who need it.

Boehner and the rest of the GOP leadership is hoping Obama offers something they can blame any popular entitlement cut on Obama, but Obama is taking the advice of Pelosi, and saying to the GOP, "You won the house, you want to cut Entitlements, so cut them". The GOP is refusing to bite, for it is a poison apple of cutting entitlements.

Pelosi seems to have convinced Obama that the best thing to do is nothing, go through the motion of negotiating but keep on asking the GOP for things to cut, and when the GOP does NOT offer anything do the same. The Devil is in the details, it is the GOP controlled house that has to vote to continue (or NOT vote to end) the Social Security Tax reduction and the rest of the tax reduction for the people earning below $250,000. The people want increase taxes on the wealthy, thus to demand tax deductions for the Wealthy AND the people below $250,000 AND a cut to services to the lowest income groups in the US, is NOT popular and unless Obama agrees, all the blame will go on the GOP.

Thus the GOP Leadership will NOT jump in that sinking ship, they see it sinking. They do NOT know what to do and thus I see the Democratic Party dominating the Congress over the next two years, for it is not always to the majority that power flows to, it is often to who KNOWS WHAT TO DO WITH THAT POWER AND WILLING TO USE IT. Right now, I suspect it is Pelosi and the Democratic Party in the Senate, along with Obama. If Obama plans it right, he will get his tax cuts for people below $250,000 and tax increase for those over $250,000.

The only question is how loyal will the various GOP members stay with the GOP leadership. Traditionally the GOP has been more loyal to its leadership then the Democratic Party (Remember, Will Rodgers famous come back when asked if he was a member of an Organized Political Party, he said "No, I'm a Democrat&quot .

This stronger loyally has its limits, and sure political defeat is such a limit (I keep remembering FDR's veto of the bill to pre-pay the bonus to WWI veterans in 1936, Hoover had veto a similar bill four years before, the GOP members of the House and Senate, seeing political defeat if they did NOT vote with the Democrats to over ride that veto lead them to vote to over ride what had been an important part of their political movement of the early 1930s). Facing Political defeat in the face is NOT a good thing, even GOP politicians will revolt under such circumstances and that is what they are facing in this fight. No matter what they do, they lose. Thus the best thing to do is agree to what Obama wants and then blame him for anything that goes wrong, even if it was due to things the GOP voted for.

More on the Bonus Army:
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