White House Deficit Talks Ploy

CBS News is reporting that

Amid ongoing efforts to work out a deal to raise the debt ceiling, the New York Times reports that the White House is offering up tens of billions of dollars' worth of reductions in Medicaid and Medicare programs - if Republicans agree to increase tax revenues.

Sorry, but this is nothing new. This is what the Obama Administration has been pushing since the debt ceiling question first came up, with emphasis on the White House (and Democrat) insistence that any debt ceiling bill must include tax hikes. And if the Republicans accept this, then, as Weasel Zippers notes

That way Obama can blame Republicans for raising taxes and cutting Medicare.

This, from the White House, is more politics than policy.

Note, too, that the Obama Administration wants to make more cuts in Medicare after having just stolen a half trillion dollars from the program in the Obamacare bill (horribly misnamed as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or PPACA) last year. In other words, the Obama Administration has already ended "Medicare as we know it".