Social Security & Medicare: "Entertain No Proposition for a Compromise"by Notthemayor - DailyKos
SUN APR 24, 2011 AT 02:41 PM PDT
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"Entertain no proposition for a compromise in regard to the extension of slavery. The instant you do, they have us under again; all our labor is lost, and sooner or later must be done over. Have none of it. The tug has to come and better now than later."
Abraham Lincoln, December 1860
Lincoln wrote those words in response to the proposed Crittenden Compromise, a set of Constitutional Amendments offered as a last ditch effort to head off the Civil War. Lincoln was willing to make a number of compromises to save the Union, but there was one key point on which he would not budge: No more extension of slavery, anywhere, in the territories controlled by the United States.
Many thought extending the Missouri Compromise line, below which slavery was allowed, to the Pacific would end contention once and for all. Lincoln saw it as a chimera, one more in a long-escalating series of opposition demands, that would bring no lasting peace while perpetuating the institution of slavery forever.
In short, though a master politician skilled in the art of compromise, Lincoln adhered to certain bedrock principles he would not sacrifice no matter the political cost.
Today we don't face the spectre of an equal crisis, but we do face a similarly determined opposition. Compromise after compromise has been crafted but always the other side demands more. A tax cut that disproportionately benefits the wealthiest of Americans for ten years, and then for two more, and then...what? The other side proposes for the future still more tax cuts for those who need it least, to levels even lower than they pay now. And their prescription to pay for it: a radical reshaping of two programs that progressive Americans and the ever-shrinking Middle Class hold most dear: Social Security and Medicare.<snip>
More:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/24/969830/-Social-Security-Entertain-No-Proposition-for-a-Compromise:kick:
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