I'd like to believe them. I'm just not entirely sure why we should. The President has never been one to hold firm to his convictions without some serious duress, so while a statement from the White House might possibly reflect where the President is today, it doesn't say anything about where he'll be tomorrow. Yes, a girl has the right to change her mind, but in this case, it's less a right than a guarantee. Which makes statements, and promises, from the West Wing somewhat less than reassuring. From Sam Stein at HuffPost:
The Obama administration is pushing back against a Wednesday night report that the president is prepared to offer cuts to Social Security as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling.That sounds a bit like "it's a lie that we're caving on Social Security today, we did that yesterday."
"The story overshoots the runway," said a senior administration official. "The President said in the State of the Union that he wanted a bipartisan process to strengthen Social Security in a balanced way that preserves the promise of the program and doesn't slash benefits."
"While it is definitely not a driver of the deficit," the official added, "it does need to be strengthened."
