Democrats fear that Obama will make the left suffer the most pain — given his recent shifts toward the center as he courts independents ahead of his 2012 reelection and since he’s dealing with a recalcitrant GOP that doesn’t want to bend on any new tax hikes

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POLITICO.COM -
Entitlements talk spooks Dems -
By MANU RAJU & JAKE SHERMAN -
July 8, 2011 -

Entitlements talk spooks Dems


Some excerpts :

Freshman Rep. Kathy Hochul put Medicare in the starkest political terms Thursday during a closed-door Democratic meeting in the Capitol basement: Drastic slashes are a loser for her party.

Across the Capitol on Thursday, Democrats openly fretted about the potential reforms to Medicare and Social Security now at the center of President Barack Obama’s talks with congressional leaders to slash $4 trillion in exchange for raising the national debt ceiling.

Kept in the dark about the high-level negotiations, congressional Democrats fear they’ll have little choice but to accept a deal with unpopular entitlement reforms and meager revenue raisers in order to win GOP support and stave off default when the Treasury Department exceeds its borrowing limit on Aug. 2.

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“Look, I’m one of those who thinks of these programs as holy grails,” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) “And I don’t want any tinkering at all. We have to see the president isn’t shooting from the hip. He’s saying something based on what he thinks will be beneficial to the economy.”

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said he would “be amazed” to see a grand compromise.

“That’s going to be quite an undertaking,” Waxman said.

While he praised Obama for ambitiously seeking a plan that seeks greater budget reductions, freshman Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said he was concerned “that we not abandon our commitment to the progressive legacy of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.”

The party, however, is split on how to handle the entitlement programs. While most Democrats furiously oppose using Social Security reforms to pay down the deficit, some are open to changes to Medicare, given that it is one of the biggest culprits of the swooning debt.

Delaware Sen. Tom Carper said there is a range of ways to save hundreds of billions to Medicare without cutting benefits — and the centrist Democrat seemed pleased about the president’s apparent shift to the center.

“God bless him,” he said.

Still, these days, Carper may be in the minority among congressional Democrats, whose frustration with the president has been steadily growing since after the November midterms. Democrats reacted angrily last December, when Obama reached a deal with GOP leaders extending all of the Bush-era tax cuts, and in April, when he and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced an eleventh-hour accord to keep the government operating after taking a whack at government programs favored by the left.

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Hochul’s response Thursday came after Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) suggested that a debt ceiling deal will most likely need to include reforms to entitlement programs. In May, Hochul pulled off a stunning upset in a Republican stronghold in upstate New York amid growing concern over the Ryan budget’s plans to turn Medicare into a voucher-based program for future beneficiaries.

In her GOP district, Hochul says, she gets the largest spates of applause when she rails on drastic cuts to Medicare and instead, promotes changes to prescription drugs and waste in the entitlement program as ways to reform the popular program.

Democrats know full well they’ll need to keep the contrast clear between the two parties on the popular issue, but they’re worried their hands may be tied.

“Put it this way: The Democrats aren’t rushing to save the Republicans from a terrible mistake that they made,” Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu said Thursday. “But on the other hand, it is important for us to try to find the right path forward to close this budget deficit and give the citizens of this country confidence that we can run this place within budget parameters.”

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