Hey, Obama, Hands Off Their Medicare

prospect.org — President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner are on track to cut a deal that Wall Street has been slavering over for a decade—a small dollop of revenue increases, mainly through loophole closings, coupled with massive spending cuts including in Social Security in Medicare, adding up to 4 to 5 trillion dollars of budget cuts over a decade. Obama is convinced that this sort of grand bargain is necessary because financial markets expect it. Yet the same financial markets are happy to lend the government money for 30 years at less than 3 percent interest. If Obama and the Republicans do make such a deal, growth will slow to a trickle. Ironically, the president, having humiliated the Republicans on Election Day, holds most of the cards.

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