This is the hill House Democrats should be willing to die upon
by digby
Yesterday I wrote about a letter from congressional freshmen circulated by new conservative Democrat Patrick Murphy from Florida, a letter full of weasel words essentially endorsing Simpson-Bowles. Only a few Democrats signed it (including some we thought better of) along with a whole big bunch of freshman Republicans, many of whom are super-right wing.
But it should be noted that another group of Democrats also circulated a letter that got a substantially higher number of Democrats on board:
107 House Democrats, a majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives, wrote President Obama today, urging him to reject any proposals to cut benefits millions of American families depend upon through Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The letter was led by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL),Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chairs Reps. Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), and Rep Donna Edwards (D-MD).
The Members specifically singled out “Chained CPI”—a proposal to reduce Social Security benefits by changing the way inflation is calculated—and raising the Medicare retirement age as policies they oppose.
“A commitment to keeping the middle-class strong and reducing poverty requires a commitment to keeping Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid strong,” the Members said in the letter. “We urge you to reject any proposals to cut benefits, and we look forward to working with you to enact approaches that instead rely on economic growth and more fair revenue-raising policies to solve our fiscal problems.”
You can read the full text of the letter and see the signers, here.
There is a lot more to these budget negotiations than just protecting the social insurance programs. But that should be a hill that Democrats are willing to die on. It appears that these 107 Democrats are telling the president they will do just that. And since none of this features any kind of expansion of benefits as the health care bill did, they have little reason to walk away from this position. After all, if the Tea Party has demonstrated anything with their obstinacy, it's that being obstinate does not translate into a policy loss.
It should not be forgotten that Democrats have gerrymandered districts with constituents too. And if they vote to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, I think the blowback will be severe. This is foundational modern Democratic Party principle --- the equivalent of the Republicans voting for government funded abortion. Those who do it will be pilloried from the left and opportunistically attacked from the right. It's no win for them.
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