Fresh on the heels of the bipartisan extension of the Bush tax policy and the introduction of a Social Security payroll tax cut, Mitch McConnell is predicting that the next area of bipartisan cooperation will focus on cutting spending on entitlements like Social Security and Medicare:
CROWLEY: And, finally, I mean, that — we’ll say that you and the president are going to disagree on that, but in our last 30 seconds, what’s the next big thing you can see yourself working with the Obama administration on in terms of legislation?
MCCONNELL: Entitlement reform can only be done on a bipartisan basis. It can’t be done one party only. We have enormous unfunded liabilities, Medicare, Social Security. I would love to sit down with the administration and see if we can do something to make certain that we leave behind the same kind of country for our children and grandchildren that our parents left behind for us.
Of course, McConnell's claim that entitlement reform can only be done on a bipartisan basis is utter bullshit, a fact he had demonstrated barely two minutes earlier in the interview when he renewed his call to repeal health care reform, including its massive savings in Medicare. But because health care reform accomplished those savings without compromising care and while also expanding coverage to the uninsured, McConnell and the GOP fought it every step of the way. But it still became the law of the land.
If McConnell were serious about reforming entitlements, he'd sit down and work with Democrats to do things like allowing Medicare to negotiate for drug prices, creating a Medicare-for-all public option that allows anyone to purchase insurance through Medicare, and lifting the cap on Social Security payroll taxes. Instead, he's fought those things with ever fiber of his being, and now when he says he wants "reform" what he really means is he wants to see cuts that erode the very core of the safety net.
Not to be outdone by McConnell, House Republicans are sticking to their demand that the next omnibus appropriations bill cut spending by twenty percent.
This week, Congress is expected to continue funding the government at current levels through early March -- at which point a newly Republican House of Representatives will get to take an axe to the federal budget. Naturally, they're promising dramatic cuts in non-defense spending.
"I don't know what's going to happen here today, or tomorrow, or Sunday in terms of how we keep the government funded," said soon-to-be House Speaker John Boehner at his weekly press conference last week. "But what I can tell you is all you have to do is go to the Pledge to America and we outline pretty... clearly that we believe that spending at '08 levels is more than sufficient to run the government."
Cuts at that level would have an impact on more than departmental budgets.
The 2008 benchmark appeals to the conservative base because it predates big spending items like the stimulus bill. But it would constitute a severe reduction in spending, to levels well below those proposed by President Obama and even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Achieving 2008 levels would require cutting about twenty percent of the non-defense discretionary budget, a reduction of over $200 billion, easily canceling out the stimulative boost provide by the Social Security payroll tax cut.
But if Boehner has any clue how he'll actually achieve his draconian budgetary goals, he's keeping it secret. Despite his tough talk, during that press conference on Friday he refused to say what programs he would cut to achieve the twenty percent reduction, even though he was asked to do so multiple times.