Thanks Dick
by digby
So Dick Durbin once again declared that Democrats won't trade defense cuts for "entitlement" cuts. That's nice. But check out what he did say:
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Sunday opened the door to Social Security cuts as part of a budget deal with congressional Republicans. But Durbin pushed back against GOP calls for entitlement cuts as the negotiating price to curb or extinguish the economically damaging sequester cuts.
"If this is the bargain that the Republicans are now pushing for, that we have to cut Medicare to avoid cuts at the Department of Defense, they need to take a step back," Durbin said on "Fox News Sunday."
Congress is currently negotiating a new budget, with a December deadline. The talks were mandated by last week's deal to raise the debt ceiling and end the government shutdown.
Also speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) explicitly offered up trading some of the short-term cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act, known as the sequester, for long-term Social Security and Medicare cuts. He argued that Republicans had the tactical advantage on such an exchange.
"If you're in a divided government and you're arguing against the law, you're at a disadvantage," Blunt said, noting the failed GOP effort to defund Obamacare that resulted in a government shutdown. "The Budget Control Act is the only thing we've found that actually controls spending."
Blunt said that if Democrats aren't willing to negotiate over "entitlement savings versus some additional spending," to ease the sequester, then Democrats will have to live with the sequester cuts.
Durbin said that Republicans had to put tax revenue on the table to get entitlement cuts. Fox host Chris Wallace noted that Durbin has previously supported entitlement cuts, and asked why Republicans should have to give up tax increases to get something that many Democrats support. President Barack Obama has repeatedly endorsed Social Security cuts as part of budget deals, and Durbin acknowledged that he did support Social Security reforms.
"Social Security is gonna run out of money in 20 years," Durbin said. "The Baby Boom generation is gonna blow away our future. We don't wanna see that happen."
Gee, Dick, way to stoke generational warfare there. Thanks a lot. Pete Peterson's wrecking crew couldn't have said it better.
Needless to say, it's bullshit:
Social Security will not run out of money in 20 years. The program currently enjoys a surplus of more than $2 trillion. Social Security will, however, be unable to pay all benefits at current levels if nothing is changed. If a 25 percent benefit cut were implemented in 20 years, the program would be solvent into the 2080s.
Oh hell, if that's the case, let's cut it 20 years in advance so we can pretend to be grown-ups shall we? After all there's nothing we could possibly do to fix it except teach 80 year old ladies a well deserved lesson in how to shop for cheap food more efficiently.
By the way, here's a reminder about how good these long term projections have turned out to be:
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The good news is that I'm reliably informed by liberals everywhere that despite the nonstop talk about cutting entitlements ever since the shutdown ended, we need not worry our pretty little heads because the Democrats will never give in on their "revenue" requirement (what ever that means) and the Republicans will never agree to any form of revenue. So we're home free.
From Gene Sperling to Bob Woodward on Feb. 22, 2013
But I do truly believe you should rethink your comment about saying saying that Potus asking for revenues is moving the goal post. I know you may not believe this, but as a friend, I think you will regret staking out that claim. The idea that the sequester was to force both sides to go back to try at a big or grand barain with a mix of entitlements and revenues (even if there were serious disagreements on composition) was part of the DNA of the thing from the start. It was an accepted part of the understanding — from the start. Really. It was assumed by the Rs on the Supercommittee that came right after: it was assumed in the November-December 2012 negotiations. There may have been big disagreements over rates and ratios — but that it was supposed to be replaced by entitlements and revenues of some form is not controversial. (Indeed, the discretionary savings amount from the Boehner-Obama negotiations were locked in in BCA: the sequester was just designed to force all back to table on entitlements and revenues.)
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