If you're wondering what Obama gets in exchange for Chained CPI...

[DaveT]

67. Tactics, Schmactics

The idea that proposing a budget with Social Security cuts in it does anything bad to Boehner or the Republicans is nonsense. Polling shows no demographic group favors it -- neither Democrats, nor Republicans nor Independents. The Republican Party as an institution does not favor it.

The GOP is always careful to phrase their demented attacks on Social Security as strengthening it or saving it.

Now our 11th Dimensional Chess Master owns the idea of cutting SS benefits -- he is the only major voice in our entire political culture favoring it. The assumption that this is not a serious proposal, but instead a gimmick to trap the GOP is based on nothing more than cognitive dissonance. It does not put the GOP into a "box." It puts President Obama into his own trap, just as in his first term when his continuous groveling before the Tea Party turned the Congress and many State Legislatures over to the Republican Party -- and subsequent gerrymandering to keep the House in GOP hands.

The Average Voter does not follow the blow by blow of legislation. The only thing that the general public will hear out of this is that Obama wants to cut Social Security -- not the purported, Obama is even willing to cut Social Security to get the GOP to raise taxes on the wealthy.

Nobody thinks that cutting Social Security is a good idea. On a parallel issue, Romney and Ryan grasped the populist point and attacked Obama from his left on his "cuts" to Medicare. This did not teach Obama anything -- and now that he has won re-election he is free to pursue his stated goal of the "Grand Bargain" to trade entitlements for tax increases.



I would like to hear from Obama defenders who claim that he is not really going to cut Social Security and that this is just a tactic -- what do you think of the President's basic premise of fiscal "balance" -- getting some form of tax increase in exchange for cuts in entitlements?

I believe that approach is bad public policy and even worse politics. What say the loyalists?