Here's Why You Don't Bother Negotiating with the Republicans

After President Obama unveiled his spending plan yesterday, which included cuts to Social Security and Medicare, I MEAN EMBRACE OF CHAINED CPI TO SLOW THE GROWTH OF BENEFITS WHICH IS TOTES NOT A CUT (it is a cut), in a bid to look reasonable and force the Republicans to support his budget, Republican Representative and chair of the House GOP's re-election committee Greg Walden went on the offensive last night, calling Obama's proposed budget "a shocking attack on seniors."

I'll tell you when you're going after seniors the way he's already done on Obamacare, taken $700 billion out of Medicare to put into Obamacare and now coming back at seniors again, I think you're crossing that line very quickly here in terms of denying access to seniors for health care in districts like mine certainly and around the country.

And there it is.

Republicans would happily destroy the entirety of the social safety net, but when President Obama proposes (legitimately bullshit) cuts, the Republicans accuse him of "a shocking attack on seniors."

This is what happens when you deal with a party with no ethics and whose base cares nought for principled consistency, except for consistency in obstructing anything President Obama wants to do. You can't call their bluff. You can't outmaneuver them by conceding to them. This is a losing strategy.

UPDATE: brooklynbadboy:

'We won't have the White House forever, folks!' So says a "longtime Obama aide," according to Politico:

"We're not going to have the White House forever, folks. If he doesn't do this, Paul Ryan is going to do it for us in a few years," said a longtime Obama aide, referring to the 2012 Republican vice presidential candidate who proposed a sweeping overhaul of Medicare that would replace some benefits with vouchers.

...You know what? Fine. If we lose the White House and both houses of Congress, then by all means, Paul Ryan should go ahead and get his druthers. If the American people vote for the Ryan budget, then by God they should have it. That's the way the political system works in a democracy. You run on a platform, you win, you get to implement your platform....

Do you think Paul Ryan would ever come out and say "Fellow Republicans, we had better go ahead and raise the minimum wage because if we don't, Bernie Sanders is going to come along and do it in a few years?" Ridiculous.

If Democrats run on something and win, then they should implement what they ran on. What Democrats should not do is run on a platform, win, then turn around and implement the policies of the side that lost. That doesn't make any sense. It makes a mockery of the political process. It treats Democratic voters like a bunch of rubes. If Republicans want to cut Social Security, let them run on it and win. We don't need to do their work for them.

No, we won't have the White House forever. That is why we should do what we stand for. What we get elected for.

Absolutely.