This is what the Dems learned from the MA election. Now more cuts to Medicare and SS

[inthebrain]

I've given up any hope that this administration can get it right. As each day passes they become more and more like the Reps on economics. The left in the MA election stayed home because of shit like this.



US: Democrats agree on commission to cut Social Security, Medicare
By Patrick Martin
21 January 2010
Obama administration officials and Democratic congressional leaders reached agreement Tuesday on the establishment of a bipartisan commission that would put recommendations for drastic budget cuts to a vote in Congress before the end of 2010. The commission would have unprecedented legal authority to propose changes in both the tax code and major entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, with Congress required to hold an up-or-down vote on its recommendations.

The exact method for establishing the commission depends on congressional action. The Senate and House could vote to establish the commission, as an amendment for legislation to raise the national debt ceiling to $13 trillion.

Press accounts suggested this was unlikely, given divisions over policy between Republicans and Democrats, as well as within both parties. If Congress fails to act, Obama would issue an executive order to create the commission, although this would leave its decisions with less legal force.

The 18 members of the commission would be appointed: six each by the congressional Democratic and Republican leaderships, and six by Obama, of which only four could be Democrats. This would give the commission a 10-8 Democratic majority.

Fourteen votes would be required to adopt any recommendation, meaning that at least half the Republicans would have to agree. This effectively ensures that only cuts in spending will be considered to lower the deficit, not tax increases on the wealthy or big business, since every congressional Republican leader has taken a “no new taxes” stand.


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/budg-j21.shtml