Anyway, it's funny. Yesterday I noted that I wasn't terribly upset about the possibility of the NYT closing shop, mostly because its reporting had become a joke.
Perhaps a perfect example here: Obama talks about being "fiscally responsible" in the long run, and talks about the fact that entitlements inevitably enter into that after being asked specifically about entitlements. Throwaway stuff. "Balance the budget, shore up entitlements, blahblahblah." Presidents have been saying these things for decades. The NYT takes this and says he's going to cut funding to retirees. No quotes, no sources (not even anonymous), just stereotypical ambiguity at a press conference.
In fact, he already proposed cutting funding, but what he proposed was ditching the payments to private insurers that Bush pushed through under Medicare Part D that cost us billions each year. He also proposed raising the cap on payroll taxes. Those are, as far as I know, his only two concrete proposals on Social Security and Medicare, aside from the digitizing of medical records that would be part of the health reform package.
Now maybe he will try to cut funding to entitlements on a large scale, such that it would affect normal people. Hell if I know. (I do know he'd be virtually guaranteed of becoming a one-term president if he tried, which also makes me doubt the NYT's interpretation here. It's also not the kind of thing you propose in an offhand remark at a press conference.) But I don't see how the NYT drew that conclusion from the press conference, and it seems to be more along the lines of giving the NYT's site traffic with another in its ongoing series of sensationalist stories. They've done this on several issues now.
Could be wrong. But I think Baker would do well to read the article again and think a bit. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
Mr. Obama pledged Wednesday to attack surging spending on entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare, and he promised to lay out specific federal programs to cut when he unveils his first budget blueprint next month.
This suggests to me that he's talking about cutting spending. I think that this is probably going to be means testing, but it isn't going to fly.
With people like Furman and Goolsbee making policy, this should be no surprise. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
But, again, from where are they getting that? The question and answer that sparked the whole drama seems to have come from the question asked by the WSJ reporter and Obama's answer. The WSJ reporter babbled something about how the real key to controlling federal spending was controlling spending on entitlements, and then asked when he would address entitlements and what his approach would be. He babbled something about consulting with members of Congress and submitting a budget.
Unless I'm missing a quote somewhere -- and I might well be, for the record, I dunno -- he doesn't seem to have said anything about cutting benefits. The transition website says the opposite.
At most, it strikes me as Village blather about entitlements, which seems to be the entry fee to Very Seriousness nowadays, even though nobody ever does anything about it.
But, like I said, I could be wrong. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
