Breaking news: Obama will cut Social Security, largely spare the Pentagon, and retain many Bush era tax cuts

The New York Times is reporting that President Obama will cut Social Security, largely spare the Pentagon, and retain many Bush tax cuts: a grand betrayal.  President Delivers a New Offer on the Fiscal Crisis to Boehner.

The plan would cut $122 billion by “adopting a new measure of inflation that slows the growth of government benefits, especially Social Security.”

The Bush tax cuts will remain in place for all incomes under $400,000 (not $250,000).

“Of the $800 billion in straight cuts, the president said half would come from federal health care programs; $200 billion from other so-called mandatory programs, like farm price supports, not subject to Congress’s annual spending bills; $100 billion from defense spending; and $100 billion from domestic programs under Congress’s annual discretion. ”

Social Security hasn’t contributed a penny to the deficit. It’s the crown jewel of the New Deal.  But it gets cut more than military spending.  Instead, Congress and the President should scrap the cap on Social Security contributions: eliminate the $110,100 limit on income subject to the Social Security tax.  The elimination of the cap would greatly extend and strengthen Social Security.

As Obama recently said of himself, “My policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies … back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican.”

The deal was struck while the country is distracted by mourning over the gun massacre.  See also Salon’s Obama surrendering to Boehner?

No matter how far the President moves to the right, the Democratic Party follows him.

“If Democratic legislators join the president in a grand betrayal, they may witness a powerful Tea Party movement from the left, as Republican legislators have from the right.” — Robert L. Borosage, in The Nation (2012/12/03)