From a Dan Froomkin piece in the (yes, I know) Huffington Post:
President Barack Obama's apparent willingness to consider cuts in Social Security benefits may be winning him points with Washington elites, but it's killing him with voters, who see the program as inviolate and may start to wonder what the Democratic Party stands for, if not for Social Security.
The details are a bit of a shock:
A post-election poll by Celinda Lake's Lake Research Partners found that, by a margin of 3 percentage points, Americans now trust Republicans in Congress more than Democrats when it comes to Social Security -- surely the first time since the program became a signature issue for the Democratic Party in the 1930s.
...
The public favors congressional Republicans over Obama on Social Security by an even larger 6-point margin. Obama's 26-percent rating is not only less than half Bill Clinton's (53 percent), it's even lower than that of George W. Bush (37 percent), whose proposal to privatize the program went down in flames.
Let me repeat:
Voters think Republicans will protect Social Security -- and that Democrats won't.
The Froomkin article has some more commentary and analysis on the voter impact of cutting Social Security. I have to admit that I'm one of those Americans whose votes will be strongly -- to say the least -- influenced by White House and Congressional action on this front.
I'm not likely to vote for any President who signs a bill that cuts Social Security benefits -- especially in the absence of an impending crisis that requires significant changes to the system.
I won't vote for a Congressman who does either.
Politicians have to earn my vote -- regardless of the party that they are in.
Here is the best way to strengthen Social Security:
Bring back jobs that pay a solid, middle-class wage.
Unfortunately, government seems to remain stuck in its Beltway Bubble where the real problems of the day are deficits and Social Security. We won't break the bubble if we continue to give them a pass on this issue.