The
newest Democratic House member has a message for debt ceiling negotiators.
Freshman Rep. Kathy Hochul put Medicare in the starkest political terms Thursday during a closed-door Democratic meeting in the Capitol basement: Drastic slashes are a loser for her party.....
Kept in the dark about the high-level negotiations, congressional Democrats fear they’ll have little choice but to accept a deal with unpopular entitlement reforms and meager revenue raisers in order to win GOP support and stave off default when the Treasury Department exceeds its borrowing limit on Aug. 2.
Major changes to Medicare, they fear, could neutralize the effect of Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan’s highly controversial overhaul proposal that has emerged as a major wedge issue ahead of the 2012 campaign....
Republicans, who for months had their backs to the wall after they voted for Ryan’s far-reaching Medicare overhaul, sense new political opportunity.
“It dilutes their argument that the mean old Republicans are going to end Medicare as you know it,” Texas Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told POLITICO.
Well, duh. Of course House and Senate Democrats have a choice. Just say no to the cuts that they know will not only be devastating to their political futures, but also to middle class and low income Americans. In order to pass, the deal will also have to have Democratic support. A little hardball on that point now could save at least one chamber of Congress in 2012.