As the only truly fair and balanced poster on ET, even I find this despicable. Obama said that he cannot guarantee that retirees will receive their Social Security checks on August 3, if an agreement isn't reached on reducing the deficit in the coming weeks.
If Obama is to take the Republicans at their word, then that is indeed a possible implication. Perhaps Americans are not aware just how close the Right is playing chicken on the debt ceiling issue, and their general unwillingness to negotiate on both sides of the budgetary equation. A wake-up call is very much in order.
What are the specifics of Obama's solution? I've heard him say he'd rather be talking about the NFL...
The Fearmongering At The Top Begins: Obama Says "Can Not" Guarantee Social Security Payments Without A Debt Ceiling Hike Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/12/2011 13:30 -0400 It worked for Hank Paulson who showed up in Congress with a three page termsheet, delusions of grandeur, a scary story, and an easily frightened audience. Why should it not work for the president. As Reuters reports, "Barack Obama said in an interview on Tuesday that checks to recipients of the Social Security retirement program may not go out in early August if he and congressional leaders do not agree a debt deal. "I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue," Obama said in an interview with CBS, according to a transcript on the network's web site. "Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it," Obama said." Is that so Mr. President? Please explain then how according to the most recent DTS the YTD (fiscal) amount paid out on Social Security is $469 billion, well below the amount collected from Federal Tax Deposits of $780 billion. As a comparison, this number is lower than the combination of Medicare and Medicaid ($638 billion YTD), and the combination of Defense and Education Payments ($480 billion). Indicatively, Federal salaries are a whopping $137.6 billion, or said otherwise, all of the SSN payments to date are just three times bigger than what the government pays its own employees. Perhaps a bigger issue is that the debt held by the public has increased by $720 billion YTD, a number which will soon grow to $1.5 trillion if the government does get debt hike it so desperately needs. So please Mr. President, feel free to engage in your hollow rhetoric when addressing your political adversaries or staring at the teleprompter, but please don't pander to the general population. It didn't work for Hank Paulson, at least not the first time. We all know what happened with your all important stock market after that.
Krauthammer: Obama's Sudden Interest In Cutting Debt A "Farce" http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vi..._sudden_interest_in_cutting_debt_a_farce.html