The "Fiscal Cliff" vote is over, did we cut Social Security?

[WonderGrunion]

As I said in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022053713

The stupid GOP will always kick at the Social Security football and President Obama will always pull that football away at the last minute. It's not getting kicked this time. It's never getting kicked.

[kentuck]

1. It's not over...

It's just getting started. We will have the fiscal cliff with us forever.

[WonderGrunion]

2. But did we cut Social Security?

I've heard from so many on DU that it was absolutely for really, really double dog certain going to happen this time.

[MessiahRp]

3. If the Fiscal Cliff Crisis ended with today's vote, you'd be right.

But today's vote was a 2 month rental and we'll see what happens when the GOP comes hard for Welfare, Medicare and Social Security in February's Debt Ceiling battle. Remember all that shit that DUers always blather about RE: Obama keeping his powder dry? The Republicans decided this was going to be their dry powder moment because they really think they can win the fight in February.

[Bluenorthwest]

6. I see lots of folks posting that they see from 'so many' stuff like 'absolutely double dog' and that

is cute stuff to say you heard, but none of those folks manage to quote anyone actually saying 'double dog certain'. So cool story!
The actual reality is that the can got kicked. Down the road. Again. This deal got done without any concessions regarding the debt ceiling, the Republicans are already holding tight to the offers made during the 'cliff' and will reintroduce them during the 'ceiling'.
So if your point is to shame people for speaking their own minds about such an important issue, I really can not support that objective at all.
So where is your link showing 'so many' saying 'absolutely double dog'? You do not have one.
And I tell you this, and I mean it: any politician with millions in his pocket with tactical abilities so weak that he has to off 'take grandma's wallet' is like a guy who gambles using his wife and kids as his stake. Even if he wins the hand, the placing of such a bet is amoral and unprincipled.
I'll check back for your 'double dog certain' links, because no way are you making that up out of whole cloth.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. So when you say 'I heard from many' you really mean 'I am making up shit I never saw and can

not quote. That's very classy of you. False witness and all. Makes your point seem so important. And what is your point? That people should not advocate for the policy and the government they want out of duly elected public servants? Is that the point? What is your objective here? Are you unable to read the 'deal' yourself?
Others know the 'cliff' was the preshow for the 'ceiling'. Every couple of months the DC Millionaire Political Professionals have to tie poor people to the alter and threaten to cut. High tide, full moon, up they come to spawn, you know the routine.

[Buzz Clik]

15. You are kidding. Do you not read DU?

Every form of gloom and doom has been repeated endlessly for weeks. Social Security is definitely part of the script and continues to be.

It is truly ironic that you call the author of the OP a liar, but others are continuing to suggest that SS is on the table IN THIS THREAD!

You owe an apology.

[Bluenorthwest]

38. OP can offer up any single quote that says the shit he claims he sees from 'many'.

Or I should say the OP could if the OP was not making up crap to characterize others rather than sticking to facts. The hyperbole and characterization routine is an over all point loser, new tactics need to come in because that one is failing, failing, failing.
I note the person I challenged did not even have the courage to counter me himself. Why? He's making up all the words he ascribes to other people. Just as I said.

[JackRiddler]

27. Yes, exactly. No deal has been made, it's only...

a two month delay on all issues other than income tax (which was not a good deal).

At least there will be a slightly - slightly - better Congress in play.

[customerserviceguy]

4. Chained CPI

is being saved for the entitlement talks that will take place later in the year.

[demwing]

5. No.

The answer you.are looking for is "NO.";

[Leopolds Ghost]

8. The fiscal cliff was originally pushed for by Obama as a way of implementing SS reform

The fiscal cliff were punitive measures that would go into effect if the Catfood Commission recommendations were not adopted.

This is part of an ongoing austerity strategy that is also being followed in the EU, which just passed a Europe-wide balanced budget amendment. Who here likes balanced budget amendments??

[plethoro]

24. Yep. The MIC developed a PERT Network for cutting

"entitlements". We are simply in a direction change leg of that network. We have to develop our own PERT Network so we can keep winning. I haven't done one in a while but I don't think it would be too tough.

[Leopolds Ghost]

42. PERT network? Sounds intriguing

Not familiar with it, but I will look it up.

[JoePhilly]

9. The prediction that Obama will cut Social Security will pop back up

just as it has almost quarterly for the last 3 years.

DU will become HairOnFireUnderground again, and the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments will resume anew.

That's my prediction.

[Bonobo]

11. Never occurred to Joe that the outrage from the actual Left had some effect. Never will. nt

[JoePhilly]

12. "Obama is going to cave and cut Social Security!!!!!"

That's has been the refrain here on DU for weeks.

Now, when that prediction turns out to be wrong, some need a way to rationalize their over the top rhetoric.

Rather than recognize that just perhaps, the anguished rhetoric was over the top, they take credit for preventing an event that was not happening in the first place.

Its a nice coping strategy.

"I wasn't really wrong, in fact, I was the hero that saved the day."

[Bonobo]

17. Well cheerleading like a schmuck sure doesn't help. nt

[JoePhilly]

31. If you go back over my posts on this topic, you'll find my predicted outcome is

actually what happened.

I predcited that, if a deal was made, the top end Bush tax cuts would end, and that the limit might go up from 250k to about 500k depending on what else we might get.

No pom poms, and no hair-on-fire rhetoric.

I do continue to ask folks like you, who seem to be sure that Obama is about to screw us at every turn, to make specific predictions about exactly what's going to happen.

What we usually see here is an amorphous outrage that reshapes itself.

Take this time ... Obama was absolutely going to raise the Medicare age. When it became clear that was not happening, he was definitely going to cut SS, then that didn't happen, and so now the outrage kind of morphs into "but he's probably going to". This is only about the 5th or 6th time this exact pattern has played out in the last 3+ years.

And my prediction is that DU will again become HairOnFireUnderground once again in a couple months.

[brush]

20. Good post

Finally, someone grounded in reality. It's increasingly hard for me to come here with all the Obama bashers so your post makes up for all the bad mouthers who seem to think the President can just stubbornly plant his feet in the ground and get everything he wants. It's a process, and anyone with any sense of recent history, if they admit it to themselves, can see the trend line of things that have gotten done during the President's administration are on the whole positive. Remember where we were as a country 4 years ago. W had us in the toilet. It takes patience and a lot of work and arm twisting to move a 5000 pound elephant to the left. Hell, we even have a health care law now in place that can worked on and moved towards single payer, but it ain't gonna be easy. Nothing is against the repugs and their corporate clients.

[plethoro]

25. That is exactly what it was. It was the Democrats that understood the threat and who

was instigating that threat and did something about it that saved the day--not the people who said this is all a bunch of malarkey. I got a lot of people sending letters, texts, emails and whatever to the White House and Congress from my own website. How much did that help? I don't know... But I would bet had there been no attempt by concerned Democrats to stand fast and tall on their own Maginot Line, we'd have chained CPI this day. And it ain't over by a long shot. With the leverage now given to the Republicans by undercutting the tax on rich people, we have to find at least 400 billion dollars between now and February to ward off another Republican attack, this one by that fly Eric Cantor. It's nice to just say Pfttt sometimes, but this is not one of those times.

[JoePhilly]

32. The GOP is going to attack again, no matter what happened, its what they do.

And its great that folks are sending letters and calling their representatives. I do that too.

What I'm talking about is the endless hair-on-fire threads accusing Obama of trying to hurt seniors, or workers, or the poor. It happens every 4-6 months or so. And it happened again over the last few weeks.

[jerseyjack]

10. White House to libruls. "Fuck Them" (NYT article, 1/2/13)

I'll summarize it so you don't have to read it.

[Buzz Clik]

16. Or even give the link. How kind of you to save us the time.

[vi5]

13. Did the debt ceiling get raised?

If not, then you might want to save your victory dance for 2 months from now when we have this stupid, idiotic fight all over again.

[bowens43]

14. That comes in two months......

[MNBrewer]

18. Never is a very long time

Especially when the President who has said he's willing to cut Social Security. Has he retracted that statement, and I missed it?

[Motown_Johnny]

19. Actually, by letting the payroll tax holiday expire we have strengthened it.

[CranialRectaLoopback]

21. Yes

In Fiscal Cliff Two: The Debt Ceiling Stealing

[forestpath]

22. So do you mean I can stop calling and writing the WH and my reps about it now?

Because they will never ever ever cut SS?

Is that what you mean?

[stupidicus]

28. well, this is the defense of and for his expressed willingness to cut it from

those who either lack the mental acuity required to resolve his actually doing so and a willingness to do so into the two separate and distinct things they are, or lacking the intellectual honesty to concede that they are.

The whole idea you see, is to blunt the criticism of his having offered that particular sacrificial lamb and what it says about his status or position on the ideological spectrum, by claiming that it is unreasonable and irrational to take him at his word. Apparently only the "loony left" does that. This dishonesty is of course understandable, as well as the use of the Lucy analogy, "N" dimensional chess, etc, -- they don't want our allegedly "liberal" president having his legacy tarnished even by the willingness to cut SS.

So, in typical impotent fashion, they attack the messengers in lieu of any defense of or for the message BHO himself delivered, and find themselves remaining wholly incapable of presenting cause beyond stupid analogies as to why fears and concerns that SS may be touched by this president are unreasonable and irrational.

That's been the case with every one of them I've locked horns with over the last few months on the issue. There's nothing irrational or unreasonable about fears or concerns over what he says he'll consider/has offered to do, and their "NUH UH" arguments are worthy of the playground. It's all concerted bluster and BS on their part intended to obscure the fact that they have no way of hiding the fact that he put SS on the chopping block, and all these posts like this one are merely dishonest dodges and an effort to change the subject to those like you and I.

It makes dishonest weaklings of them all imo.

Wow, imagine that -- we're loons for taking BHO literally and at his word. Apparently we must be "loony lefties" for not calling him a liar instead. By their standard, and what they're really arguing for, is that this irrational and unreasonable threat to SS some of us feel is really just a "the ends justify the means" type lie Saint Raygun honed into an artform. In other words, they want us to accept being lied to, and to figure out when we are and aren't being lied to.

[forestpath]

35. Yep. Especially because, when Obama does put it back on the table, they will

blame us for not calling, writing, and (a new requirement of theirs I discovered the other day) making everyone we know call and write, too.

See how that works in their meme world - we don't dare question President Obama's intentions, but if we don't beg, plead and supplicate enough to protest against what they claim he never did and would never do in the first place, why, it's our fault when he does do it.

[JoePhilly]

33. No, folks should continue to do that.

But maybe, just maybe, we don't need an endless stream of hair-in-fire DU threads screaming about how Obama has a secret plan to kill granny ... and that fortunately, the Tea Party won't let him execute it.

[Bluenorthwest]

39. Why? Because it bugs you? What difference does that make?

To me, a politician in our system is a public servant who has offered him or herself up for exploitation as part of the political debate. That is they are fodder, they are fuel, they are not so much people as they are memes to use.
It is worthwhile to piss off the 'don't criticize him, we looooove him' crowd because they could mature into activists more useful to the people and to the President. To play the always faithful ardent supporter is very important, but also a very limited role. Not all of the electorate can indulge in pin-up politics, although I do think it is good that some do fit that full tilt supporter role, that way they give those with actual political goals something to use as a backboard.
Let's try to make this clear: On DADT repeal, one of the reasons we got the repeal done had to do with Obama first defending DADT in court, offering himself as the proxy for the actual opposition. By loudly opposing his actions, people gave him the context, the set and the setting in which he could turn to full support of repeal. Same routine is going down on marriage equality. He plays his part very well and allows the people to use him without his ego becoming all bruised. That's why I like him, also why I am usually seen contesting some bit of his policy which he later 'evolves' to an new position. To make big change in the face of the Republicans, dear JoePhilly, requires a political leader with a strong self knowledge and a very long fuse on his or her temper, also needed are activists who will oppose that leader during the 'debate and evolve' phase AND constant defenders of that leader who serve as proxies to the activist's arguments.
The folks who spent months lecturing gay folks that the President 'could not come out for equality until AT LEAST his second term' were really, really wrong. They said 'you want a pony, but I am a PRAGMATIST so I know he can not, in reality, do what you want no matter how many DUers demand that he do so'......
So yeah. Takes all kinds. Takes the fans, the critics, the leader and the opposition to make change.
I offer this: I came into Obama's term wanting DADT repealed. Got it done. Also wanted him to support marriage equality. Which he has. During the entire process, I was a 'critic' of Obama's and others were his 'supporters' who oddly supported by saying 'he can't' when in fact, I knew that he could. And he did. Because we gave him the set and setting to take action. The ardent 'he can't' supporters played their role as well. It's just not the role they think it is.

[JoePhilly]

40. And during that DADT effort ... there was a loud group on DU claiming

Obama has absolutely no intent to end DADT. They claimed he was secretly against ending it. When congress repealed it, they said he would not sign it. After he signed it, they said he didn't really want to and that he'd find a way to let the military ignore it. Then when that was wrong, they said he was going to let the military slow walk it for years and years.

I have no problem with the debate or the criticism of things he actually does. But as I have said many times, we've seen DU burst into flames with endless haironfire threads claiming that Obama plans to cut social security and medicare. Not just that he might make a concession of some kind, but that his actual goal is to significantly cut and weaken those programs because he's really a republican, or a secret corporatist plutocrat.

In contrast, these claims can not be disproved because unlike DADT, Obama was able to act and prove the haironfire folks wrong. Here, the only way Obama can prove he has no such secret evil plan, is to leave his second term without having performed the evil acts that have been endlessly predicted.

We've been through 6 or 7 bouts of "Obama is about to slash Social Security and Medicare". "He hates us" on and on. And when it doesn't happen what do they say "Well, just cause he didn't do it, doesn't mean I'm wrong about his evil plan", or "He only didn't do it because we were screaming."

That last version is a neat coping maneuver. Not only is the person who make the prediction about Obama's evil plan not wrong, they in fact become the hero who saved the day.

I don't expect the haironfire folks to change. In fact, my prediction is that they will again flip out in a few months. After all, that's been the pattern going back at least three years.

Ironically, if Obama had lost in 2012, those making those predictions would have been wrong. With Obama winning, they get 4 more years to scream and holler. And I have every expectation that they will do so.

[Dawgs]

23. WTF!!! Obama is the one that put SS on the table. The Democrats in Congress took it away.

Obama was a willing participant in the Republican plan to cut entitlements.

Any spin that says otherwise is a lie.

[Bodhi BloodWave]

29. Is it so hard for people to actually think that the WH and Congress(dem side) might actually

work together on things like this?

why should my above view be considered spin and not yours?

[MNBrewer]

34. This isn't Schrödinger's cat we're talking about

It's not like Social Security wasn't REALLY on the chopping block until and unless the cuts were actually implemented. It was right THERE, in plain view, ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK.

The President said "as you know, one of the proposals we made was something called Chained CPI, which sounds real technical but basically makes an adjustment in terms of how inflation is calculated on
Social Security. Highly unpopular among Democrats. Not something supported by AARP. But in pursuit of strengthening Social Security for the long-term I’m willing to make those decisions."

We're supposed to somehow "know" that the offer was a fake, a ruse, disingenuous, untrue? (Some people would call that lying)

How, then, are we to determine when the President is telling us the truth, and when he is being disingenuous (lying)? Are we to rely on our spidey sense? i.e., wishful thinking.

[bemildred]

26. No. nt

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

30. No, but that doesn't stop the ODSers to find something else to go after the

president about.

[CentristLiberal]

36. Our President just cleaned the Republicans clock

And there's so much griping here on this site. I'm new here, but I can't believe there's so much animosity toward the Pres and VP after they just worked so hard for a Democratic victory.

Is it OK to be a Democrat and support Democratic victories here?

[uppityperson]

37. As everywhere, those who are most upset post the most and loudest.

[Enrique]

41. it's a mistake to focus so much on personality

Social Security is still at risk.

[Autumn]

43. No, Obama did however put it on the table

playing games with old peoples security is not a nice thing to do. In fact it's downright fucking cruel.

[forestpath]

44. +1

[hfojvt]

45. no "all" we did was create permanent tax cuts for the rich

no big deal, nothing to see here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022130101