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White House Pushes Back Against Claim That Obama Will Cut Social Security

07/07/2011 8:28 am 0 comments

Source: Sam Stein / The Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — 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.

“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.”

The response, sent via email to The Huffington Post, provides a measure of assurance to Democrats who were taken aback by the abrupt news, broken by the Washington Post, that Social Security reform was now on the debt-ceiling table. Still, the devil is in the details, and the idea of “strengthening” the entitlement program remains the vague standard for reform.

To read this article in its entirety visit The Huffington Post.

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