For more than two years, President Obama has endorsed reducing Social Security payments as part of an ambitious deal to tame the national debt. But then Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) -- viewed by supporters on the left as a potential 2016 presidential candidate -- embraced a far different proposal: increasing benefits for seniors.
Junior Senator from a blue state lining up to be the next "Know Nothing" president. We need a Senator Warren photo.
As Obama struggles to achieve his second-term domestic agenda, a more liberal and populist voice is emerging within a Democratic Party already looking ahead to the next presidential election. The push from the left represents both a critique of Obama's tenure and a clear challenge to Hillary Rodham Clinton, the party's presumptive presidential front-runner, who carries a more centrist banner.Hilly carries a 'more centrist' banner? Compared to Wasserman-Schlitz, I suppose.
The left's influence will be on display in coming weeks when a high-profile congressional committee formed after the government shutdown faces a deadline to forge a budget agreement. Under strong pressure from liberals, the panel has effectively abandoned discussion of a "grand bargain" agreement partly because it probably would involve cuts to Social Security.
So the budget will be balanced by increasing taxes and expanding benefits?
"The absolute last thing we should do in 2013 -- at the very moment that Social Security has become the principal lifeline for millions of our seniors -- is allow the program to begin to be dismantled inch by inch," Warren said recently on the Senate floor, announcing her support for a bill that would expand the program.
So if you're not "expanding", you're "dismantling inch by inch"?
