Pick Your Poison, Mr. President

The GOP's debt ceiling deal for this year: "Who will you sacrifice to appease the Republican austerity terrorists, Mr. President?  Choose who must suffer or we crash the economy for all."

The idea is to throw in the “kitchen sink” and allow Obama to pick and choose the cuts. “If what makes it easier to find the deal is to go in and pick and choose among a dozen different programs and just grab a little bit from all 12 — instead of a lot from one them — then that works just fine,” Rep. Rob Woodall (R-GA), who heads the Republican Study Committee’s budget and spending task force, told the Journal: 

Yeah, and make it all Obama's fault.

For a long-term deal, one that gives Treasury borrowing authority for three-and-a-half years, Obama would have to agree to premium support. The plan to privatize Medicare, perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Ryan budget, is the holy grail for conservatives who say major deficit-reduction can only be achieved by making this type of cut to mandatory spending. “If the president wants to go big, there’s a big idea,” said Rep. Steve Scalise, chairman of the Republican Study Committee.

For a medium-sized increase in the debt-limit, Republicans want Obama to agree to cut spending in the SNAP food stamp program, block-grant Medicaid, or tinker with chained CPI.

For a smaller increase, there is talk of means-testing Social Security, for example, or ending certain agricultural subsidies.

While the menu includes plenty of variables, the underlying strategic goal is to reduce mandatory spending — whatever the scope of the deal. Even at the smallest end of the spectrum — another months-long extension of debt-limit — there is talk of pushing back the eligibility age for Social Security by an equal number of months.

President Obama resisted these tactics last year, but we got stuck with sequestration as a result.  Now the GOP is going to destroy America's economy unless they get their austerity this time.

So what will the austerity terrorists get from America this time?  The end of Medicare?  Social Security?  Medicaid?  Food stamps?  Who will be sacrificed?

Will it be you?