This is a last ditch effort by the Democrats to prevent slashing of Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Nancy Pelosi has presented a plan to cut $2.5 trillion without any revenue which protects Social Security and Medicare benefits.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
Pelosi just spoke to reporters about a Democratic House plan that cuts spending by $2.5 trillion but saves entitlement benefits.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi acknowledged Friday that Democrats may reluctantly accept a last-minute compromise to raise the debt limit that involves up to $2.5 trillion in spending cuts, without agreed-upon new tax revenues.
The plan would place a firewall between entitlement spending and the threat of default, upsetting GOP plans to force deep cuts to those programs. And if, as a result, the GOP declined the offer, Democrats would agree to punt the questions of entitlement spending and tax cuts to a future, streamlined legislative process.
The potential endgame, Pelosi said, would meet an arbitrary GOP requirement that Congress must only grant President Obama as much new borrowing authority as he's willing to accept in spending cuts, and leave for a later date a twinned fight over revenues and social insurance programs.
"We're willing to bite the bullet and make serious cuts in discretionary spending," Pelosi told a small group of reporters and bloggers. "That could go to a trillion dollars or more. And the interest saved on that can take us to like a trillion and a half dollars saved."
This is still giving into to Republicans but it is saving Social Security and Medicare from drastic cuts.
That's not a great deal for Democrats, she noted, but it protects key programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. "[T]hat's a non-revenue path. I don't like it at all but it doesn't go near our entitlements," Pelosi said.