Social Security, Spending Cuts | featured news

Wednesday morning, President Barack Obama became the first Democratic president ever to propose cutting Social Security. Democrats spend so much time defending the president, it is easy to forget that even the most beloved presidents make mistakes and missteps. His new budget, which proposes a new method of calculating inflation increases in Social Security payments, is a doozy.

President Barack Obama’s proposed budget will call for reductions in the growth of Social Security and other benefit programs by including a proposal to lower cost-of-living adjustments to government social safety net spending, a senior administration official says.

Just before a self-imposed deadline at which Senate leaders were set to brief their respective caucuses about a prospective deal, negotiations toward a scaled-back agreement to avoid the onset of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts on Jan. 1 appeared on the verge of breakdown.

Some of the best Republican arguments against President Barack Obama's proposals to avoid a "fiscal cliff" come from the president himself, in comments he made months or years before his re-election. Stung by the GOP's midterm election gains in 2010, Obama took stands that differ from his current positions on raising tax rates, adjusting Social Security and other topics now dominating Washington as a Dec. 31 deadline nears.

President Barack Obama's re-election has stiffened Democrats' spine against cutting popular benefit programs such as Medicare and Social Security. Their new resolve could become as big a hurdle to a deal that would skirt crippling tax increases and spending cuts in January as Republicans' resistance to raising tax rates on the wealthy.

President Obama seeks up to $4 trillion in deficit cuts, putting Social Security, Medicare, defense spending and tax reform on the table as part of a balanced approach to cuts, officials say.

A federal shutdown looming Friday would stop processing of paper income tax filings to the IRS – at the height of tax season – and throw into question how cargo will be processed at the nation’s ports of entry and whether new claims for Social Security benefits will be authorized.