I came across this article in the Wall Street Journal [8]about Obama's Congressional Budget Office Director, Peter Orszag, and how he's basically becoming one of the key point men to help "sell" Obamacare, since everyone (including many Democrats) wants to know where the money is coming from.
Understandable enough. But that wasn't what was interesting.
What jumped out at me was this sentence:
...he sent a letter to Capitol Hill detailing a proposal he had been more quietly pitching for weeks -- creating a new agency with power to cut spending and implement changes in Medicare, the giant health program for the elderly. He also attached proposed legislative language. It was the most specific that the White House, which has tried to articulate principles and leave details to lawmakers, has been on any aspect of the legislation.
OK, now how many of you out there can just imagine the howls of protest we would be hearing from Democrats if something like this had been proposed by the Bush administration - or any Republican.
"They're cutting Medicare! They're cutting Medicare!", they would scream. We wouldn't be able to have rational conversations about anything else. AARP would be staging protest in front of lawmakers' offices. The evening news would be leading off with stories about how proposed Republican cuts to Medicare would kill old people. We'd be treated to the "personal" stories of someone being forced to choose between pills and food, etc., etc..
We've all seen that movie before.
Heck, conservatives get beat up with this type of hysteria even when they don't propose real cuts...just reductions in the rate of growth.
But there it is, in black and white. Obama proposing cuts to Medicare. You can search that on Google [9], and you'll come up with a few calm, matter of fact articles. But no hysteria. Only crickets.
So what gives now? I think we all know the answer to that question. Not only is a Democrat in the White House doing the proposing...but it's "The One". And the people who usually do such PR hit jobs are too invested in his success.
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