I'm now completely done being amazed.

[duffyduff]

41. And you forget this

From Barack Obama:

But he framed the economic recovery efforts more broadly, saying it is impossible to separate the country's financial ills from the long-term need to rein in health-care costs, stabilize Social Security and prevent the Medicare program from bankrupting the government.

"This, by the way, is where there are going to be very difficult choices and issues of sacrifice and responsibility and duty," he said. "You have to have a president who is willing to spend some political capital on this. And I intend to spend some."

Obama is not the first incoming president to make bold declarations about overhauling the nation's retirement and health-care systems. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush made similar vows.

And this beaut:

That discussion will begin next month, Obama said, when he convenes a "fiscal responsibility summit" before delivering his first budget to Congress. He said his administration will begin confronting the issues of entitlement reform and long-term budget deficits soon after it jump-starts job growth and the stock market.

"What we have done is kicked this can down the road. We are now at the end of the road and are not in a position to kick it any further," he said. "We have to signal seriousness in this by making sure some of the hard decisions are made under my watch, not someone else's."

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-01-16/politics/36899872_1_barack-obama-key-economic-priority-items-entitlement-reform


Don't sit there and try and confuse the issue by saying Carter did the same thing. He didn't. Carter didn't go around thinking Social Security ought to be "reformed." Obama has.