General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Obama: Dems don't get enough credit for willingness to cut Social Security and Medicare [View all]patrice
(47,992 posts)the President's critique of media, not an article about what to do about Medicare and Social Security "sustainability" issues.
If you do the drill down on the supporting pieces, we see that the quote you use isn't even hearsay. The underlying articles describe this administration's analysis of sustainability issues in Medicare and Social Security and differing perspectives on those.
I saw NO mention of what to do about any of it, let alone the word "cuts". I wonder if you could direct me to the primary source of that reference instead of the secondary one that you have quoted here.
My guess is that, while this Administration must consider all possible scenarios and sort those into degrees of probability and do the work of understanding each, they are forced to address some, out of many, probabilities that have to do with these sustainability issues. The reason they might not engage in solution scenarios, TTE, "We should do this ______________ or that _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _" is because it's nothing but high speculation without the relevant Congress in which those kinds of efforts would work themselves out. And even were the analysis closer to the situation in which it would be addressed by Congress, showing one's hand, in total, too far ahead is a recipe for defeat of your solutions.
So, assuming the sustainability issues are a given, I guess the administration has a couple or three possible tactics it will consider in addressing Medicare and Social Security sustainability issues. Which one(s) will be pursued will depend upon the political configuration of the relevant Congress.
What will shape the political configuration of the Congress that will address these issues? Well, if the President enters that situation politically weakened by the propagation of the expectation that cuts are his preferred method of creating sustainability, that Congress could be comprised/dominated by those who want to take advantage of that weakened condition. If there is gridlock, as there was this last Congress, and it comes down to do what he can to solve the problems as best as possible under the circumstances, rather than handing a more dire Medicare/SS situation off to a possibly Republican President, or an even worse Congress, we have to ask ourselves what he'd do.
A different kind of Congress would get a different tactical response to the issues from the administration.