There has been talk in progressive circles about how the WH is going to negotiate with Republicans on Medicare cuts and meet them halfway. Even though the WH has been pretty clear that they don't favor any changes to the benefits side of Medicare. That hasn't seemed to be enough because there was an entire segment on Cenk's show this week with David Sirota and Jane Hamsher where they weren't speculating that the WH would cute Medicare, but were assuming it was already a done deal and strategizing how democrats should respond to the expected WH cave.
As a sometimes critic of Obama, this was one area where I felt the Obama critics on the left were trying extremely hard to play into their narrative of the WH, and despite zero reports of Medicare cuts being a legitimate negotiating point, they were willing to play along.
So, for the glass if half empty crow.you can breath easy now. Valerie Jarrett was on Morning Joe this week and didn't leave any room for interpretation. Without any prompting from Morning Joe, she pre-emptively ruled out benefits cuts. Unlike other democrats, like Steny Hoyer, she didn't swing for the low hanging fruit of coming out against Vouchers. She made it explicit that harming seniors in anyway was out of the question.
Below are the quotes:
in response to Mika asking about Bill Clinton saying Democrats should work with republicans:
"We want to make sure we protect our senior citizens...we can find efficiencies within the system without in anyway cutting benefits to our senior citizens."
In response to David Gregory replyhing by saying inefficiencies aren't enough and cuts would be needed:
"I wouldn't rule out efficiencies David, within the medicare program there is ample opportunity on that but not by cutting benefits to senior citizens. "
Video Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has been following the WH talking points on Ryan's budget. The day of Obama's budget speech administration officials briefed the press and said "the president is against raising the retirement age for Medicare", which would probably be the easy "compromise" for benefit cuts. While Obamabots mindlessly defend and rationalize everything Obama does, which is soooooo infuriating. The reflexive critics are sometimes just as bad on the other end, creating conspiracies when there are none, and almost always reaching the same conclusion...Obama sold them out. Always keep on open mind people...critique where its warranted,..give credit where its due.