Last Chance to Stop the Grand Bargain Murder of Social Security

For the moment, Obama's surrender still contains one condition that congressional repugs will refuse: tax increases. Pocket change for the parasitic rich, but still enough to make repug rejection fairly certain.

Which means there's still time to throw the brakes on this thing before Obama murders the middle class by surrendering unconditionally.

If your Senators and Reps are repugs, tell them you don't want Obama to get credit for cutting spending and fixing entitlements. If you're from Kentucky, tell Rand Paul you want him to get credit for that after he's inaugurated President in four years.

Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars:

It's official, folks. The Grand Bargain is here.
Time to take action. If we don't unleash holy hell, this will go through.

Even though we've been warning you for a long time, it's still hard to believe that a Democratic president is offering up the crown jewels of Democratic policy -- and for a mere pittance. We need to fight back. You can call or write your congressperson or the White House if you want, but it's most useful to start with your senators. Tell them you're not willing to starve Granny to make the Republicans happy.

We're going to concentrate on the Senate, because they'll probably send a bipartisan bill to the House in order to bypass Boehner's Hastert rule. Even if you called last week, call today. Be prepared to call every day for the next week. (Here's the link.)

President Obama will release a budget next week that proposes significant cuts to Medicare and Social Security and fewer tax hikes than in the past, a conciliatory approach that he hopes will convince Republicans to sign onto a grand bargain that would curb government borrowing and replace deep spending cuts that took effect March 1.

Obama will break with the tradition of providing a sweeping vision of his ideal spending priorities, untethered from political realities. Instead, the document will incorporate the compromise offer Obama made to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) last December in the discussions over the “fiscal cliff” – which included $1.8 trillion in deficit reduction through spending cuts and tax increases.

“The president has made clear that he is willing to compromise and do tough things to reduce the deficit,” a senior administration official said, “but only in the context of a package like this one that has balance and includes revenues from the wealthiest Americans and that is designed to promote economic growth.”

Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

Republican extremism and a complete unwillingness to deal with the Kenyan usurper is the one thing keeping us from cuts to Social Security:

SNIP

It’d be nice if Obama realized for once that the Republicans will never compromise with him unless he completely capitulates to their agenda, with its ever rightward shifting goalposts. Pretending to be a nice moderate Republican is not going to work. Nor should it since if a Democratic president can’t stand up for Social Security, what can he stand up for?

Don't make me answer that.