Here we go again with Lindsey Graham continuing to threaten to use the debt ceiling to inflict pain on the working class, or as he calls it, "saving Social Security and Medicare." Graham made this exact same threat almost a year ago where he was a little more specific about his plans for our social safety nets.
Here he was on the same show, Meet the Press, again telling David Gregory that we should risk the full faith and credit of the United States of America if Democrats won't give him his pound of flesh from our senior citizens:
GREGORY: Sen. Graham, the question for you is could you vote for a bill that extended tax cuts for $250 thousand and below, extended unemployment insurance as the President wants to do and in some way delays some of these automatic spending cuts? Could you vote for that in the short term?
GRAHAM: No. If you want leaders, then you have to lead and the President's been a pathetic fiscal leader. He's produced three budgets and can't get one vote for any of his budgets. You know, Boehner will be Tip O'Neill. Obama needs to be Ronald Reagan and here's what I would vote for. I would vote for revenues, including tax rate hikes, even though I don't like them to get a... to save the country from becoming Greece.
But I'm not going to set aside the $1.2 trillion in cuts. Any hope of going over the fiscal cliff must start in the Senate. Not one Democrat would support the idea that we could protect 99 percent of Americans from a tax increase. Boehner's Plan B I thought made sense. To my Republican colleagues, the Ronald Reagan model is that if you get 80 percent of what you want, that's a pretty good day. We have the same objective of lowering taxes. I like Simpson-Bowles. Eliminate deductions, lower rates, put money on the debt. Tax rate hikes are a partisan solution driven by the President, but he's going to get tax rate hikes. […]
There will not be a big deal. The big chance for a big deal is with the debt ceiling. That's when we will have leverage to turn the country around, prevent it from becoming Greece and save Social Security and Medicare. And anybody listening to this program, I will raise the debt ceiling only if we save Medicare and Social Security from insolvency and prevent this country from becoming Greece. No more borrowing without addressing why we're in debt to begin with. That's where the real chance for change occurs, at the debt ceiling debate.
Chuck Schumer responded by reminding the viewers just how reckless Graham's remarks are and by reiterating that President Obama is not going to allow what happened the last time around to happen again. That apparently has had zero affect on Graham who is still going to go out there and stomp his feet and make ridiculous comparisons to Greece to try to scare the public, when the ones they ought to be afraid of are Graham and his fellow Republicans who are determined to continue to destroy what's left of the middle class in America and to shred every one of our social safety nets for the most vulnerable among us.
Graham feigns concern over the budget deficit now, but he never has those same concerns back when Bush was blowing mile wide holes in it with tax cuts for the rich and invading a couple of countries which he refused to put on the books. Graham's solutions never seem to include any military spending, since that's apparently the only jobs program that Republicans like -- putting military contractors to work.
