Quite a choice the GOP is giving seniors:

[pnwmom]

We can default, which will cause soaring interest rates, and cause chaos in the world economy -- and will probably delay your S.S. check for an indeterminate time.

Or we can force Obama to accept CUTS in your Social Security and Medicare payments -- forever.

[HopeHoops]

1. Who the fuck cares? At least the top 1% is safe from having their tax cuts repealed.

The important things are being addressed here.

:sarcasm: - just in case anyone failed to recognize it.

[gratuitous]

2. It's their own fault

Why didn't those old fogeys just choose to be wealthy? Then they wouldn't have any of these problems, and the GOP would actually be fighting for them. So, see, it's really their own fault they didn't choose to be investment bankers and entrepreneurs and Wall Street moguls. See?

[SusanaMontana41]

3. Is it accurate to say they are forcing him to accept cuts

when the cuts were his idea? I don't know why S.S., Medicare and Medicaid were "on the table" in the first place!

[pnwmom]

4. Yes, it's accurate. There's no way to achieve the level of budget cuts they're talking about

without either raising taxes -- which they utterly refuse to do -- or by cutting social welfare programs.

Obama, so far, has been talking about looking for SAVINGS in these programs (for example, we could save a lot in Medicare by negotiating for lower costs with drug companies), rather than cutting benefit checks going to seniors. (Although there was some talk of a 14 cent reduction in a future COLA increase -- but I'm not sure that idea originated with Obama, or if he simply said he was willing to consider it.)

[SusanaMontana41]

5. Ah, OK. I still don't understand

why they were used as bargaining chips, though. He could have refused to do that and called the 'Pug's bluff.

[pnwmom]

6. He started out by insisting that he wanted a "clean" debt limit bill.

And they said no. Absolutely not. So now it's a giant game of chicken.

Is he supposed to bluff us off a cliff? Because defaulting really would be a catastrophe, and its effects could potentially lead to a worldwide depression.