Social Security

The conventional wisdom is that Obama will trade health care reform to the conservatives in exchange for some change to programs like social security and welfare. Obama feels he can do this because he feel the left will chant "Yes We Can" to selling out. Again, this is just the conventional wisdom.

Digby, in particular, has been uncharacteristically livid about it.

I think a lot of the preemptive lefty outrage is a shot across the bow of the administration in the wake of the preemptive capitulation of the stimulus, which is fine and ought be done.

I don't want any of this shit touched no matter what, but I'm pretty serene about it, because I know when this is brought up, all hell will come down on Obama. His ability to fuck with the left will be completely destroyed from that moment going forward. There is no better way to get lefties frothing at the mouth than to try to touch social security. And America has our backs on it.

One of these days he'll realize that if he wants something, he just just say that's what he wants and we'll push him over the line. That's the great thing about being a president of the majority with a 70% approval rating; you don't always have to kowtow to the shrine of William F. Buckley.

Politics anymore is nothing more than a rugby scrum, and America trusts liberals when it comes to entitlement programs.

By the way, "entitlement" is about to become a dirty word, but I will not stop using it. Every American is fucking entitled to health care even if they're poor, and some sort of way to pay the bills when they're old. Non-negotiable.

So, without a hint of irony, I say "bring it on." The harder they push, the harder it will be for Rahm to keep his job.

Again;


If we're going to go with the wildly unpopular privization approach, bring it on. You will not win the privatization fight.

Whatever problems you are seeing with paying the interest on social security bonds could be easily dealt with by removing the cap on contributions.