From the Strongest Possible Position, Obama Gets the Worst Possible Deal.

While we were fixated on preventing them from raising the Medicare age, they snuck a Social Security benefit cut on us.

 

Call your Congress critters and the White House right now.

 

Susie Madrak has a script:

As Atrios says, we're kicking it old school. Get your dialing fingers ready and tell your senators and congress critters: No Social Security cuts! The White House switchboard is 202-456-1414. (Leave their responses in the comments.)

Hi, my name is [NAME] and I'm a constituent living in [CITY].
I would like the senator to commit to opposing any cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits.
This includes committing to oppose any plan which raises the retirement age or Medicare eligibility age, or changes the cost-of-living adjustment to reduce benefits over time -- all of which are benefit cuts.
Can I count on the senator to vote against any bill that includes any cuts to Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security benefits?

Digby:

This is the deal I most worried about: chump change from millionaires in exchange for painful cuts to vital government programs that help average people. They'll call it a tweak, a little accounting change. And no doubt the Democrats will tout the tax hikes as the holy grail that shows the kind of tough, deficit cutting. But the only people who will really sacrifice and sufferare the people at the lower end of the income scale. The top 1% will be "paying a little bit more" which they will not even notice. That's wrong.

and

... you can still call your congressional Rep and Senator of either party and tell them that you do not want cuts to Social Security. There may be enough fear of the rickety third rail left out there to stop this.

Call your Congress critters and the White House right now. 

Even Kevin Drum, who's been pushing for a combination of tax hike and benefits cuts within the Social Security system, says this deal is stupid:

In addition to the fact that the Social Security cuts would hurt retirees, I continue to think it sets a bad precedent to link Social Security to a broad deficit deal that's otherwise focused on general fund spending and revenue. Social Security is a separate program, and if a deal is going to be made, compromises should be made within the program. It's one thing to hammer out an agreement to raise revenues and cut benefits that affect only Social Security, but it's quite another to cut Social Security benefits in return for general fund tax increases. I don't like that, and I don't like the idea that Obama is setting a precedent to do that kind of thing again in the future.

Yep, the Grand Bargain Obama would sell his mother for is even worse than we thought, 'cause there is no fucking way the Medicare retirement age is surving a half trillion dollars in unspecified cuts.

 

Kathleen Geier at Political Animal:

This morning brings news of a possible deal on the horizon, concerning the “fiscal cliff.” Obama would get the an extension of the Bush tax cuts for households with incomes under $400,000 (not $250,000, which was his goal), a two-year debt limit reprieve, the elimination of the sequester, and additional revenue and the extension of emergency unemployment benefits.

What he is willing to give up for this? Quite a lot, actually. It amounts to about half a trillion dollars in future cuts to social programs (the nature of these cuts have yet to be determined), and also significant cuts to Social Security benefits, in the form known as “chained CPI.” “Chained CPI” is an alternative way of calculating the cost of living which will lower benefit amounts.

I realize that compromises are going to be made on this deal which I, along with most Democrats, are not going to like, but I am not a fan of this deal. At all. Where do I begin?

First of all, the idea of all those large unspecified cuts in social programs makes me very uneasy. Secondly, the two-year debt reprieve, while it sounds like a good idea, is actually quite risky for the Democrats, as Brian Beutler explains. And then there are those Social Security cuts.

In last night’s lukewarm blog post about the deal, Paul Krugman pointed out that at least the Social Security cuts “are not nearly as bad as raising the Medicare age.” That is true, but it is also faint praise. Basically, I’m with Delong, who says,“‘Chained-CPI’ is code for ‘let’s really impoverish some women in their 90s!’ It’s a bad policy.”

SNIP
Cutting Social Security benefits should be off the table. As Delong says, “This deal would still be on the table in January. And odds are Obama could get a much better deal than this come January.” I agree. I worry, though, that cutting Social Security may be the kind of “Grand Bargain” Obama has always seemed amenable to. I don’t think it’s too cynical to believe that the White House floated the story that they were considering raising the Medicare age, so that Democrats would find the bitter pill of cutting Social Security more acceptable. Let’s hope progressives put up a real fight on this one and force the White House to hold out for something better.

Keep in mind, too, that this whole negotiating bullshit is completely unnecessary.

 

Jon Walker at Firedoglake:

The recent emergence of Speaker John Boehner’s Plan B perfectly highlights the most important aspect of the current negotiations, mainly the fact that there is no reason President Obama even needs to compromise.

And yet he is. Congress is another story.

Call your Congress critters and the White House right now.