— The bill raised the debt ceiling without ensuring long-term fiscal stability, especially in entitlement programs.
The 2012 campaign should be about leadership, and about the failure of Barack Obama to provide it on the big issues, including – especially – on entitlement reform, debt, and deficits.
Republicans would resume the fight for broad spending cuts, especially to entitlement programs like Medicare, in late January or February, when the government will face raising its borrowing limit and when, many Republicans believe, they will have much more leverage than they do now.
But their prescriptions, especially on entitlements, were the center of the stormiest engagements throughout the night.
"Raising the debt limit without addressing the cause of our debt — out-of-control spending, especially in entitlements — will be as damaging as a default," he said.
It calls for a $4 trillion deficit reduction over 10 years; 35 percent of that amount would be achieved through tax increases and 65 percent through spending cuts, especially of entitlements.
To be sure, he follows the party line, believing that fiscal prudence means spending cuts, especially on entitlements, and that higher taxes of any sort must be avoided.
While it looks forward to the recommendations of the deficit commission, says the organization, "we already know that mandatory spending, especially in entitlements, is the primary culprit.
In an indie-rock environment that eschews the clean-cut, natty nonchalance can look a lot like entitlement, especially when emanating from a band of mostly white Ivy League-educated young men with good posture.
It may surprise some Americans to learn that the United States spends quite a lot on the affluent, especially through the entitlement programs at the heart of the budget fight: Social Security and Medicare.
