Obama: I am willing to discuss compromise on entitlement programs

This is on the Bloomberg News Crawl. Mr. President, just increase the debt limit and forget about the deficit

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K&R

suck me dry!! Standing on the brink and we get this. Hey, just push me and get it over with. We're ALMOST there anyway.
:grr:

It seems to be working if it's true or not

The crawl on Bloomberg is a direct quote from his speech, so I guess it's as trustworthy as he is.

outlets, it is the most informed, and tries to present all perspectives

even when this stuff comes out of the Presidents mouth you don't believe it.

not improvements...what a way to lose your base.

Boehner " I think we need to pay for the wars, tax cuts for the rich on the backs of the old and poor"

President "fuck that"

that I will not vote for him next year? I will vote for EVERY Democrat in state and local races, but this kind of crap pushes me closer and closer to writing in Bernie Sanders for POTUS.

Why would Obama intentionally abandon a position of strength?

This is eerily reminiscent of when he allowed the extension of the Bush tax cuts in 2009 -an action that allowed all this deficit discussion bull to start with.

I cannot PRETEND that Obama is on my side just because he wears a uniform that says D. I will not do it.

not to mention all but a small percentage of the population.

I am sure Pelosi just cringed when she watched the presser.

They can try to distance themselves from him in the elections like the Pukes did from Bush in 2008, but that didn't work so well for them. I can't imagine it would work any better for us.

The President tells people to call their Reps which I have and I have e-mailed him too. What good does that do when he refuses to hear us and undermines our efforts? Virtually no one outside of Washington and the corporate high rises wants changes to the Big 3. He already knows this but is choosing to turn a deaf ear by continually raising the subject and dangling them out there like a big juicy carrot for the PUKES to swallow whole.

I know there are people who still believe in him and that's your right.

Every time I am willing to give him the benefit of doubt, however, he brings it up again.

Very dissappointed in him, JMHO.

I don't see how it can recover.

As the Democratic party gets demolished, losing everything it ever stood for, so goes the nation.:nuke: :grr:

this is being done to depress Democratic voter turnout in 2012.

The deficit creates debt. Periodically, one must raise the debt limit to accommodate new borrowing.

Social Security is an entitlement program which, unlike every other part of the federal government currently has a $2.6T surplus. Stopping Social Security checks today wouldn't lower the deficit or the debt one penny.

actually is working well. But they are hell bent on destroying it.

disturbing because once this begins from our side, how are we going to seal it back up?

We never recovered from Telecommunications Act 1996, not from the Glass Steagall repeal, we have the Patriot Act...like that
one is going away?...right. Military Commissions Act 2006 etc.

I'm afraid we are going to lose far too much, again.

They will achieve things that they can never achieve through normal legislative process. That's the beginning of the end for SS and Medicare.

Well played, Mr. President.

but it doesn't mean draconian.

Medicare is how you make costs lower. It needs to be expanded and private health insurance needs to be shrunk and pushed to the margins of the market - or abolished outright.

I agree we should abolish the profits, executive salaries and advertising expenses of private insurers. However, the simple math shows that will not come close to addressing rising medical costs.

That said, talk to ANYONE who has their own medical practice. They will all tell you they LOSE money from medicare and medicaid. Private insurance is where they make up those lost profits.

The reality is that we, as a nation, need to have an HONEST discussion on the medical costs incurred in our last years of life without someone screaming "death panels" to gain poltiically. We need to either limit care or tax more.

I worked for a couple of years with a woman whose hubby was a neurologic radiologist. He came from a long line of Republican doctors. At a cocktail party health reform came up and he shocked me by saying he was for single payer. He explained that his office spent so much time dealing/arguing with the dozens and dozens of different insurers and plans that a huge amount of staff and physician time was wasted. Dealing with one set of rules through a single payer process would, he said, save so much time and money that any net loss in terms of fees would be more than paid for by increases in efficiency. And he also said that staff and physicians would have more time to spend with patients.

Medicare fraud by health care service providers is institutionalized. It is a huge cash cow.

and a bigger percent has to go to Medicare. So Obama knows it has to be addressed. There are ways of doing it that move us towards reform and dealing with fraud.

The repukes of course just want to kill the beast.

However, a few "tweaks" means a few hundred, maybe a few thousand, maybe more (who knows, really) people will fall off the edge of our tattered health care system and die. It probably won't be anyone you know or love, so what's the big schmeal? Making "tweaks" that contain costs and put the government into a better negotiating posture for the pharmacy formulary is obviously off the table, because the Big Pharma Boyz might stop sending the campaign contribution checks.

Die, sickos!

*Blink, blink* Hmmm. No, that doesn't sound like a very palatable solution at all.

but Obama is being forced to address this now by repukes who are looking to attack.

This is what is in the current bills, when Obama really screws us, get back to me.

So far I see him doing what he can to stave off the repukes.

I do not agree with raising the Medicare eligibility age or messing with SS, and have to
believe that there are other ways, and the dems know they must work within those boundaries.

I'm supposed to just sit quietly and withhold my criticism or analysis until it's too late, and then be scolded for not speaking up sooner, or not recognizing that the President was just doing what he said he would do all along, if I had only been paying attention instead of indulging my pony wish fetish. I went off script. I apologize and totally withdraw my previous comments. Thank you for getting me back to being sensible, and recognizing that further sacrifice of the poor and ailing is the only way forward.

issues at hand not repeat simplistic memes that show a superficial understanding of the issues.

:grr:

tremendously if we extended medicare to all Americans -to healthy vigorous young Americans, instead of only the old, sick and disabled. Obama is going in exactly the wrong direction.

"I'll eliminate Social Security and Medicare COMPLETELY if Cantor smiles at me!" :puke:

and Medicare are INSURANCE programs into which we all pay premiums our whole working lives and have a right to collect on when old. THEY are not "entitlements".

Corporate subsidies and no-bid contracts are entitlements. So are Congressional perks, IMHO.

Those are the definition of retirement programs.

Go buy yourself an annuity and tell me about it again.

I think you need to read up on what the definition of insurance is. And, the crap that loser salespeople try to package as a combinatio of the 2 is not something I would compare social security/medicare to.

...during a Recession & Jobs CRISIS.
THAT is traditional Conservative Republican DOGMA,
and it has NEVER worked.

During a Recession and Jobs Crisis,
"DEMOCRATS" INCREASE Government Spending in areas that produce JOBS,
and STRENGTHEN the Safety net.
That has a a Track Record of WORKING.

Who in the White House is speaking FOR a "Democratic" Plan?
Who in Congress is speaking for a Democratic Plan?
Answer: Those Democrats the "Centrists" like to label as "The Fringe Left",
or in other words, Traditional Democrats.



Who will STAND and FIGHT for THIS American Majority?
The "Fringe Left" will!

so I'm done being disappointed

I feel I haven't been bipartisan enough in the voting booth. And the President says we should be as bipartisan as possible. So, hey! I'm willing if the President is.

It sounds like we're beggars in the street. We paid for these programs and they need to leave them alone.

We are waaay past that. The republicans never compromised with you Mr. President. They're even revolting against Boehner now, because of the extremist tea baggers who actually want to see this nation default.

Stop "being open" to things and enact the 14th!

Desperately. Just be done with it and put the (R) after your name! :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

Republican, he is possibly the smartest Republican president in history, unfortunately not a very (if at all) compassionate coservative.

They will not deal with him ironically.

chopping off my left ear.


That doesn't mean I'll do it.

Just a little bit of it then. Or else we'll label you a racist and a Bachmann lover!

:sarcasm: