Democrats Appear Wary to Concede any Reforms to Entitlements

Democrats talk tough on entitlements in fiscal cliff debate (Politico)

Congressional Democrats are starting to draw a much tougher line on entitlements in the increasingly messy fiscal cliff talks, warning Republicans to keep their hands off Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Democrats also say they’ll refuse to look at GOP calls to dramatically slash Medicaid. And for them to even entertain any changes to Medicare and Medicaid, they say the price is for Republicans to agree to far higher taxes than they have flirted with so far.

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) went even further with a fresh push for negotiators to keep all entitlement discussions out of the fiscal cliff talks, and instead keep the focus solely on taxes and automatic spending cuts.

For many Democrats, these entitlement programs are part of their core identity — aggressively protecting the social safety net programs created by the New Deal and the Great Society is as much a part of the progressive worldview as tax cuts and smaller government are for conservatives. And if President Barack Obama reaches a bipartisan deal with GOP leaders that cuts entitlements, he can expect a rebellion from his allies on the Hill — that is, unless he wins what they consider major concessions from Republicans on taxes.

“Let them put revenue on the table first,” veteran Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) told POLITICO. “I don’t want to hear, ‘Oh well, we’ll close loopholes.’ What the hell does that mean? That’s nothing.”