Republicans Won't Put Forward Entitlement Cuts
Posted at 1:30 p.m. on Nov. 29, 2012
Ezra Klein looks at the “peculiar impasse” that is afflicting the “fiscal cliff” negotiations: “Republicans are refusing to name their Medicare cuts.”
“That’s partly politics. If nothing else, Republicans are respectful of Medicare’s political potency… But it’s partly policy, too. The fact is that short of converting the program to a premium support system…Republicans simply don’t know what they want to do on Medicare. ”
“The solution they’ve come up with, such as it is, is to insist that the Obama administration needs to be the one to propose Medicare cuts… Democrats find this flatly ridiculous: Given that the Obama administration would happily raise taxes without cutting Medicare but that Republicans will only raise taxes if we cut Medicare, it falls on the Republicans to name their price. But behind their negotiating posture is a troubling policy reality: They don’t know what that price is. “
