Reply #7: more smoke and mirrors....

[mike_c]

The cuts will come when the gang of twelve stands on the necks of the working class later-- this time around, Obama succeeded in making cuts to entitlement programs part of the conversation-- you know, the ones we're entitled to because we paid for them. Social security is no longer the third rail of U.S. politics-- there is broad acceptance in congress and out that the "problem" of social security must be addressed in order to "solve" the "deficit problem." Never mind that there isn't really a deficit problem unless the government makes it a problem, or that social security is completely successful, solvent, and not even related to the "deficit problem," or that cutting SS benefits won't have one whit of impact on the deficit, ever.

The right's issues with SS are ideological, but the program is well loved by Americans, even most rank-and-file right wingers, so they have to wrap it up into a "problem" that people think they understand. Demonizing SS as part of the deficit accomplishes that.

Obama carried water for them. He threw SS on the table like a cheap trinket. He was the first non-crazy American politician to grasp the third rail and live to tell the tale, and he did it for no good reason at all.