Republican Priorities

Obama summed up the main priority of the Republicans on Meet the Press today:

I offered not only a trillion dollars in– over a trillion dollars in spending cuts over the next 10 years, but these changes would result in even more savings in the next 10 years. And would solve our deficit problem for a decade. They say that their biggest priority is making sure that we deal with the deficit in a serious way, but the way they’re behaving is that their only priority is making sure that tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are protected. That seems to be their only overriding, unifying theme.

Turns out they have a second priority, cutting Social Security benefits:

Negotiations to reach a last-ditch agreement to head off large tax increases and sweeping spending cuts in the new year broke down, at least temporarily, on Sunday after Republicans requested that a deal include a new way of calculating inflation that would lower payments to beneficiaries programs like Social Security and slow their growth.

Disagreement over Social Security is being called a major setback in the fiscal cliff negotiations today.

Update: Republicans appear to have taken Social Security cuts off the table for now. While they might not demand these cuts as part of the fiscal cliff negotiations they do plan to bring this up again in 2013.

7 Comments

  1. 1
    Mom says:

    Republican Priorities: tax cuts on wealthy and cuts in Social Security benefits. #p2 #p21 #topprog http://t.co/7LuwuhfE

  2. 2
    AlwaysThink says:

    Republican Priorities: tax cuts on wealthy and cuts in Social Security benefits. #p2 #p21 #topprog http://t.co/7LuwuhfE

  3. 3
    Dan Castro says:

    Republican Priorities: tax cuts on wealthy and cuts in Social Security benefits. #p2 #p21 #topprog http://t.co/7LuwuhfE

  4. 4
    Jandarling says:

    Republican Priorities: tax cuts on wealthy and cuts in Social Security benefits. #p2 #p21 #topprog http://t.co/7LuwuhfE

  5. 5
    JUDI says:

    Same old GOP……RT @ronchusid: Republican Priorities #p2 #p21 #topprog http://t.co/88NR5xKn

  6. 6
    Tim R says:

    Mr. Chusid,

    Your piece is factually inaccurate.  Obama is the one who proposed cuts in SS benefits, during the first round of negotiations with Boehner.

    After those negotiations failed, Republicans wanted to start with Obama’s original concessions.  Which Obama refused, no doubt due to the huge amount of pressure he got from progressives to disallow those cuts.

    Your piece makes it sound as if these SS cuts were Republicans’ ideas all along.

  7. 7
    Ron Chusid says:

    No, if you read the linked news reports you will see that my post is factually correct. I was writing about the negotiations this weekend where it was the Republicans who raised these Social Security cuts.

    You are also being misleading when you try to deny that it is the Republicans who want to cut Social Security. Obama offered cuts during the negotiations with Boehner because it was the Republicans who demanded these cuts. Republicans, not Obama, desired to cut Social Security. Obama only offered the concession as part of a grand bargain where he would receive significantly more in return than the Republicans are now offering.

    Cutting Social Security benefits has been the Republican idea all along.

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