Is Obama a DINO? supports what Republicans have always wanted - cut Social Security

Status
Not open for further replies.

Indus

Lifer
May 11, 2002
13,544
9,413
136
from: http://thehill.com/policy/finance/258091-white-house-gop-near-two-year-budget-deal

Senior White House officials and congressional leaders have struck a deal to raise the debt limit and set the federal budget for the next two years, say sources familiar with the talks.

The deal would extend the debt ceiling to March 2017 and bust budget limits set by a 2011 agreement that imposed a decade of reduced spending known as sequestration on the government.

It would raise those caps by a total of $112 billion in fiscal 2016 and 2017, according to a person briefed on the agreement.

Those funds would be divided equally between defense and nondefense spending, charting a compromise between Republican defense hawks pushing for more Pentagon spending and Democrats who wanted more spending on domestic programs as well.

The deal would also restructure benefits for Social Security Disability Insurance, a move that Republicans have pitched as the program’s first major change in decades.

The House could vote on the deal as early as Wednesday, and the legislation is expected to be unveiled late Monday night.

If approved, it would provide a fresh start for Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who is expected to be elected Speaker later this week and has not taken part in these budget negotiations, aides said. Outgoing Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said he wants to “clean the barn up a little bit” to make life easier for his successor.

It would also ensure Congress would not have to deal with the threat of a government shutdown or default before the 2016 elections, a goal of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Yet getting a deal through the House and Senate could be an enormous challenge.

Raising the debt ceiling by itself is political poison for many Republicans, who have argued for deep spending cuts to be linked to any hike in the nation’s borrowing limit. Instead, the emerging deal would break the sequester and increase spending.

In a special closed-door House GOP meeting scheduled Monday night to discuss the deal, several Freedom Caucus members stood up and complained to Boehner.

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) told Boehner that leadership negotiations were a “perfect example of how things are broken in Washington.

Boehner replied that he didn’t like the process either, saying he wants regular order. But the Speaker said Obama is looking for ways to shut down the government.

“We can fall into that trap or we can lead,” Boehner said, according to a source in the room.

Democrats likely will be expected to bring many votes to the package, but that could also be in doubt because of the budgetary offsets used to pay for the increased spending that include cuts to both Medicare and Social Security disability benefits.

The deal would specifically extend the 2 percent payment cut to Medicare under the sequester.

“This would be the first significant reform to Social Security since 1983, and would result in $168 billion long-term savings,” according to a source familiar with the talks.

Several House Democrats, led by Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra (Calif.), have also said they would oppose any deal that decreased benefits.

Democrats speaking about the emerging deal on Monday tread carefully with their public comments.

“As I have been saying for years, it is past time that we do away with the harmful, draconian sequester cuts,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who did not mention any offsets used in the package. “We must also ensure that there are equal defense and nondefense increases,” he added.

The White House also took a cautious approach on a deal that lawmakers in both parties were still learning about Monday night.

“Not everything has been agreed to. That means nothing has been agreed to,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters. “We continue to urge Republicans to engage constructively with Democrats to find common ground and do the right thing for the country.”

White House budget director Shaun Donovan and legislative affairs director Katie Beirne Fallon crafted the package with staff representing McConnell, Boehner, Reid and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).Talks first began Sept. 17, according to a House source.

Republican leaders presented the deal to their conferences in the House and Senate on Monday night.

The deal would increase spending caps for defense and nondefense programs by $25 billion each in fiscal 2016, according to a source briefed on the package. It would then boost defense and nondefense discretionary accounts by $15 billion each in fiscal 2017.

Another $32 billion spread over two years would be provided for the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund used to fight the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and for operations in Afghanistan. That boost nearly meets the president’s requested figure for 2016.

One source familiar with the deal said that the OCO funds were not offset and that the other $80 billion was paid for with separate budgetary moves.

Reaching an accord on the top-line budget numbers will allow the leaders of the Appropriations committees in both chambers to put together an omnibus spending package before Christmas.

Tying the spending deal, which includes reforms to mandatory spending programs, to the debt-ceiling measure allows Republicans to argue that they won some concessions in return for extending the nation’s borrowing authority.

Democrats have long insisted they will not negotiate over the $18.1 trillion debt limit, which the Treasury Department has said must be raised by Nov. 3 to avoid defaulting on the county’s bills.

Lawmakers also face a Dec. 11 deadline to fund the government.

The budget talks have additionally been linked to a long-term highway funding bill and a measure to renew the Export-Import Bank, but congressional leadership sources said those measures are not part of the final deal.

One leadership aide said the package would not prevent federal funding for Planned Parenthood, something sought by Republicans.

The source said the final deal did include language to prevent double-digit premium hikes that would hit 8 million Medicare enrollees in 2016.

Averting the 52 percent premium increases has been a priority for Pelosi and could help win Democratic support for the package.

Staving off the increases is expected to cost about $7.5 billion, and Democratic aides have said Pelosi’s office was quietly negotiating with Boehner on the offsets. That measure is fully paid for in the deal, a source said.

But President Obama and Pelosi would also have to make a major concession on the administration’s healthcare law.

The deal would repeal a major piece of ObamaCare known as the auto-enrollment mandate, which would require large employers to automatically enroll workers into healthcare plans. Any employees already under the plan would be rolled over into plans as well.

House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) said Boehner and Obama had been laying the groundwork for a possible deal for months.

“I think that there’s work that has gone on for several months on this so it just culminated before it had to happen,” he said.

Sessions praised the deal as fiscally prudent.

“I do know the levels that we’re talking about, and in the long run, the aggregate is keeping us on a glide path to being careful with how much money we spend,” he said.

“This Speaker had a long-term goal, and that was to end the process that we had in favor of a longer-term debt agreement,” he added.

Seriously, WTF? D:

I hope the Democrats in the House don't vote for this shit if it includes cuts to Social Security.. because that is what it is.. shitting on all the American People while they still get lobbying/ speaking fees and jobs.
 
Last edited:

IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
71,364
30,945
136
The SS Disability program desperately needs an overhaul. It is a broken system.
 

Brian Stirling

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2010
3,964
2
0
Until the 80's a majority of major corporation used to provide something called a pension, but not many corps do so anymore. So, the folks that retired before the rug was pulled out had a pension as well as SS to retire on.

In the late 60's the FBI was going after the mob and the biggest win they had was getting the mob infiltrated Teamsters for siphoning off some of the pension fund. That is, they were able to prosecute and put in prison mob and union types for skimming from the union pension fund. Decades later the CEO's of major corporations destroyed the pension system and no one went to jail.

Baby boomers are starting to head off into retirement and within a decade or so the numbers eligible to collect SS will peak and unless the money is there millions of old people may be left out in the cold with too little to live on.

It is depressing to think that the USA might, within a lifetime, become the country that defined upward mobility only to become a third world banana republic.

How long before they suggest Soylent Green as the solution...


Brian
 

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
16,222
14,213
136
So far as I've read, this bill does two things with respect to SS. First, it transfers money from the SS general benefits fund to the SSDI fund. This will prevent a cut in SSDI benefits. AFAIK it's not affecting benefits to core SS.

The second thing is that it cuts about $4-5 billion from SSDI, but not as cuts to benefits. I'm not certain I understand exactly what they're doing, but it's supposed to be some kind of improvement in efficiency. Edit: ivshane already posted it above - they are implementing additional qualification screening for SSDI, which is in the vein of reducing fraud and abuse.

Based on what I've read, it doesn't sound like anything to be too concerned about.

If anyone has more definitive information, please post it.
 
Last edited:

Sonikku

Lifer
Jun 23, 2005
15,804
4,674
136
A tough nut to swallow for those on social security. They already get a back door pay cut every year when cost of living goes up and up while the payout remains the same.

My own mother is on disability and she said she only got a cost of living increase once in about 4 years, by about $8 a month. Needless to say, how the government calculates cost of living doesn't seem terribly aligned with reality. But the real twist is that the difference was just taken away from her foodstamps so she was basically being asked to just absorb the loss.

Now our government wants to slash it on top of that? D: Well, at least Big Oil and co get to continue to have their costs of doing business subsidized by tax payers while the military complex continues to spend as much as the next ten countries combined on training current cycle rebels into new cycle terrorists.
 

balloonshark

Diamond Member
Jun 5, 2008
6,770
3,253
136
A tough nut to swallow for those on social security. They already get a back door pay cut every year when cost of living goes up and up while the payout remains the same.

My own mother is on disability and she said she only got a cost of living increase once in about 4 years, by about $8 a month. Needless to say, how the government calculates cost of living doesn't seem terribly aligned with reality. But the real twist is that the difference was just taken away from her foodstamps so she was basically being asked to just absorb the loss.

Now our government wants to slash it on top of that? D: Well, at least Big Oil and co get to continue to have their costs of doing business subsidized by tax payers while the military complex continues to spend as much as the next ten countries combined on training current cycle rebels into new cycle terrorists.
Yep. Every time they get a raise they cut their SNAP and HUD benefits because of the raise which ends up being a net loss in income.
 

JEDIYoda

Lifer
Jul 13, 2005
33,986
3,320
126
Seriously, WTF?

I hope the Democrats in the House don't vote for this shit if it includes cuts to Social Security.. because that is what it is.. shitting on all the American People while they still get lobbying/ speaking fees and jobs.
sounds like you still have a hard on for Obama.....
 

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
16,222
14,213
136
This cut was minor at best, something for the GOP to save face. The larger issue is actually the increase in the defense budget. The SS aspect isn't a big deal. It's probably an improvement.
 

disappoint

Lifer
Dec 7, 2009
10,132
382
126
sounds like you still have a hard on for Obama.....

Don't get your panties in a wad! He's not listening to the devi..umm Pope. He's using a condom! It'll be fine. No bodily fluids will be transfered, just relax. Take a deep breath....in....and... out... in... and... out...:eek::D:sneaky:
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
Dunno that Obama is the one proposing SSDI cuts rather than Repubs so the title may be misleading.

It's amazing that Boehner would characterize Obama as wanting to shut down the govt when it's really the radicals in his own party. He's smart & realizes that the general public won't look favorably on such posturing. He's trying to prevent an electoral massacre. Not that the 'tards care, insulated in their gerrymandered righty tighty whitey districts.

Boehner has characterized this as "cleaning out the barn". Anybody with a lick of sense realizes he's talking about teatard bullshit. Anybody with the same also realizes that if Repubs were truly interested in cutting spending they'd reduce our worldwide cold war military footprint rather than using fiscal policy as a weapon in their culture war.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.