Biden says he was surprised there was so much criticism of Obama in last night's debate

[Buzz cook]

81. Bowles-Simpson

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/barack-obama-grand-bargain-social-security-expansion_n_5751f92de4b0eb20fa0e0142

Just a year into Obama’s presidency, the White House began to pivot away from fiscal stimulus and toward austerity. The president convened a bipartisan debt reduction commission in February 2010, co-chaired by Morgan Stanley director Erskine Bowles, a Democrat, and former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wy.), and charged it with forging a fiscal “grand bargain.” That became the catchphrase of choice on the Bowles-Simpson commission — and in budget talks in subsequent years — for a compromise agreement to reduce the long-term debt, through a combination of Social Security and Medicare cuts historically anathema to Democrats and revenue increases and defense cuts hard for Republicans to swallow.

People had to fight against that. Against the conventional wisdom that cutting SSI and Medicare were necessary anyway. And one of the mavens of conventional wisdom was Joe Biden.

I never said Obama was a figurehead, that's you reading your own prejudices into the conversation.