John Harwood has an excellent piece in The New York Times making the same argument that I've been making, albeit a lot better, basically that's Obama's second inaugural wasn't a call for a massive expansion of the social safety net, but a call to maintain the safety net as constructed.
I was struck by how so many on the left described the speech as Clintonian. I was also, to some degree, vindicated by the notion that far from the Socialist Obama in Brit Hume's nightmares, the president is seeking to maintain the social safety net we've had for over half a century. Once more with feeling, this isn't a radical idea. Rather, it's a bid to say, "If we want Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (and by polling we certainly want two of out three), then we have to be prepared to pay for them." This stand in contrast to a GOP that never tried to find ways to pay for them and instead decided to attempt to dismantle them.
I was struck by how so many on the left described the speech as Clintonian. I was also, to some degree, vindicated by the notion that far from the Socialist Obama in Brit Hume's nightmares, the president is seeking to maintain the social safety net we've had for over half a century. Once more with feeling, this isn't a radical idea. Rather, it's a bid to say, "If we want Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (and by polling we certainly want two of out three), then we have to be prepared to pay for them." This stand in contrast to a GOP that never tried to find ways to pay for them and instead decided to attempt to dismantle them.
"If we want Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (and by polling we certainly want two of out three), then we have to be prepared to pay for them."
ReplyDeleteI thought we were already paying for them? If not, what are my payroll taxes going towards? Or are you saying that the programs are fiscally unsound and require those payroll taxes to be hiked yet again?
This stand in contrast to a GOP that never tried to find ways to pay for them and instead decided to attempt to dismantle them.
As someone who favors their dismantlement, this is news to me.