JONATHAN CHAIT JULY 15, 2011
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[Guest post by Alex Klein]
The president's press conference didn't contain any major new revelations on the debt ceiling; POTUS didn't accept a deal, propose a new one, or threaten to resign. But commenting on the Balanced Budget Amendment, Obama did dangle something interesting about Medicare and Medicaid. Counter Ryan and Coburn-Lieberman, Obama said "we don't have to do anything radical" — like benefit cuts — in order to fix the programs. Rather than "gut" them, Obama proposed "modest adjustments [which could] save trillions."
"It turns out that making some modest modifications in those entitlements can save you trillions of dollars."
If he's talking about the "Biden framework" for cuts here, the math looks a bit fuzzy. Is the "trillions" number part of the 1.1 trillion total cut already outlined in Obama's 2012 budget? That seems a bit of a stretch. And according to the Cantor slides, Biden plan discretionary cuts to health programs only amount to $350 billion.
So, if Obama is still married to "modest adjustments" that "save trillions" on Medicare, that means the Grand Bargain is very much still in play. This would imply, as usual, means testing and a new benefit structure. But importantly, and much to the woe of Jonathan Cohn, it would also have to mean a "modest adjustment" to the Medicare age. So although the president dodged a direct question about raising the eligibility age, the imperative is still very much present in his rhetoric. The president is sending smoke signals about an age raise, whether he realizes it or not.
5 comments
Only the Tea Party can save Obama from his disastrous "Very Serious Person" policy (and political) impulses.
- bmoodie
July 15, 2011 at 1:03pm
Wait a minute, Alex, your post possibly contradicts the one by the vacationing J. Chait immediately below. Could it be that C. Krauthammer is right after all? So Barack Obama should not be a serious person? Should he become just another ideologue? We sure need more of those. We don't have a grown-up conservative party in this country, the way Britain does. So should our Barack play a juvenile, like so many of his opposite number do? I should again like to flog a book that I mentioned here at TNR yesterday: Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What's Right and What to Do about It, by Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel. It is excellent. Not that a lot of denizens here would assimilate it if they even read it.
- liberalref
July 15, 2011 at 1:18pm
Libref, bmoodie is quoting the ironic "Very Serious Person" designation that Krugman likes to use, where "Very Serious People" say things like raising the eligibility age to 70 is an easy win-win solution to our SS and Medicare problems. Or that both parties are equally to blame for the deficit, the debt deal breakdowns, and partisan rancor generally. Or that the bond market vultures have been circling the US for the past year (when they have really only started coming into play over the past few days). Although Krugman is quite left, he accurately diagnoses this as Beltway-bubble middle of the road Brooks/Broderism. When the only thing ailing the economy is "business uncertainty" and not having a deal to cut $4T now now now, it should be obvious that you need a new prescription on your rose-tinted glasses. And probably also need to be taken down two or three income quintiles.
- chaitless
July 15, 2011 at 1:40pm
I don't follow the reasoning here. Obama may or may not want to keep the lousy age raise on the table, but there's no basis for concluding that from his comment that "modest adjustments" could save trillions. The Medicare reimbursement, tax, and benefit structure is remarkably complex, and there are innumerable potential changes that could effect large savings (which is precisely why raising the age limit to restrain the genuinely unsustainable cost growth is a bad idea). Your inference here is rather arbitrary. "And according to the Cantor slides, Biden plan discretionary cuts to health programs only amount to $350 billion. " No, according to the Cantor slides Biden plan *entitlement* cuts to health programs amount to about $350 billion.
- RerunStubs
July 15, 2011 at 3:09pm
Let's face it. "Modest adjustments" can mean a lot of things. And, let's face it, the PPACA is just a long series of "modest adjustments", especially when compared to RyanCare and its rather drastic revamping of Medicare altogether. And, as you so aptly point out, Obama's budget proposal cuts $1.1 trillion. So, going back to your "citation", excluding the parts in brackets which weren't spoken by Obama, "modest adjustments save trillions". It's a basic statement of fact in relation to the federal budget, especially if one thinks beyond the current or next fiscal year, to perhaps 10 years or so.
- GSpinks
July 15, 2011 at 4:01pm