Reporter:Are you as clear on the reality that if you have don't cut entitlement benefits this country may well go bankrupt?
Damon Silvers: That's frankly not true. That's a lie put forward by billionaires who don't want to pay higher taxes. social security is the best funded aspect of our retirement system today
Reporter 2: I'm talking about the people that understand the figures.
Damon Silvers: You're talking about -- you're talking about people who themselves are more afraid of paying higher taxes than they are of being poor in retirement. You're talking about essentially rich people. If you want to have a democracy of rich people, I suppose your statement is true.
Yeah, baby!
As you might imagine, the AFL-CIO tends to be pretty good at reading the Washington tea leaves so it's significant that they came out very strong on the day after the vote mandating new budget talks.
In an interview, Damon Silvers, the policy director of the AFL-CIO, laid down a hard line, putting Dems on notice that any agreement that cuts entitlement benefits — even in a deal that includes GOP concessions on tax hikes — is a nonstarter. Silvers strongly suggested labor would withhold support in 2014 from any Dem lawmaker who supports such a deal.
“We are opposed to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits cuts. Period,” Silvers told me. “There will be no cover for members of either party who vote for such a thing.”
Silvers said the AFL-CIO also opposes the entitlements cuts in the President’s budget, such as Chained CPI and a form of Medicare means testing. It’s unclear how, or whether, those will figure in what Dems bring to the table in the budget talks, which are mandated by the deal just reached to end the crisis.
“Chained CPI is like the vampire of American politics,” Silvers said. “It keeps being shot through the heart and it keeps reviving. The reason it keeps coming back is because it has billionaires behind it.”
It's very important to note that Silvers specifically said that GOP concessions on tax hikes makes no difference to their opposition to Chained-CPI. Thank God somebody besides the silly bloggers and activists are making that clear. Despite right wing propaganda, raising taxes is not the holy grail for progressivism and it's certainly not worth cutting social security for.
Greg notes that Reid said he would not trade sequester relief for "entitlement " cuts and that he assumes the Republicans won't agree to revenue:
But that doesn’t preclude the sort of “grand bargain” that might include entitlement benefits cuts and the closing of loopholes on the rich and corporations. Even this is a non-starter for labor unions and liberal groups, who believe that despite yesterday’s big victory, Dems must continue to resist allowing the looming political battle to get pulled on to GOP turf, where we’d be debating still more spending cuts — including to social insurance system benefits – at a time when austerity is already crippling the recovery.
Democrats can kill this vampire if they really want to. Take it off the table, already.