Thursday, August 16, 2012

Biden to the Rescue on Social Security?

Paul Ryan's nomination has done some good already:
Vice President Joe Biden told cafe patrons in Virginia on Tuesday that he could "guarantee" he and President Obama would allow no changes to Social Security.

As a debate over reforming entitlements -- particularly Medicare -- takes center stage in the 2012 presidential campaign, Biden seemed to promise not to allow changes to the program.

"Hey, by the way, let's talk about Social Security," Biden said after a diner at The Coffee Break Cafe in Stuart, VA expressed his relief that the Obama campaign wasn't talking about changing the popular entitlement program.

"Number one, I guarantee you, flat guarantee you, there will be no changes in Social Security," Biden said, per a pool report. "I flat guarantee you."
The pool report noted that most of the patrons at the cafe toward whom Biden was directing his remarks were over the age of 60.
This is huge to have Biden on the record with this, because of Obama's repeated flirting with changing the way social security is calculated to a way that would be a benefit cut for many people. And while I stand by my earlier talk that policy statements during the campaign don't matter, having definitive statements like this that you can throw back in someone's face later are the main reason campaigns are useful. It doesn't mean it won't happen, but these words will at least make it a bit harder for them.

Please, everyone ask Biden more questions! Maybe about the war in Afghanistan!

2 comments:

  1. hieronymous fartsworth8/16/12, 4:26 PM

    biden- hero of the obama administration.

    really, really didn't see that coming.

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  2. Are you kidding? I am looking forward to the VP debates like never before. An articulate man who hates women and poor people vs a guy who loves women and can't talk his way out of a paper bag.

    ReplyDelete