Keith Olbermann Issues Blistering Warning To Obama Over Potential Cuts To Social Security And Medicare (VIDEO)

Keith Olbermann tore into President Obama for contemplating a compromise with the Republicans over the debt ceiling that includes cuts in Social Security and major changes to Medicare.

Obama has repeatedly offered to raise the age of Medicare eligibility, and has put Social Security cuts firmly on the table in his attempts to craft a deal with the GOP to raise the debt ceiling.

In a Special Comment on his Monday show, Olbermann spoke out strongly against any tinkering with Medicare and Social Security. He delivered what he called a "sermon" about what he called America's "greatest accomplishment": the social safety net that includes the two programs.

Olbermann then issued a stinging warning to President Obama about what might occur if he agreed to alter Medicare and Social Security:

"I cannot foresee what will happen politically if you craft a compromise to a manufactured political crisis ... I cannot forecast if you have made yourself unelectable next year or if there's just enough greed and self-serving amnesia to reduce such an attack on that safety net to a political blip ... I find I cannot forecast if the rest of us, battered by your compromises here and your 'it's a start's' there, will bother any longer to defend you. I find I can't forecast if I will still be able to support you ... if this deal with the Republicans takes a dollar away from those people who do not have a dollar to spare while preserving the millions for those who have millions more, if this deal, sir, keeps intact funding the mechanisms we have for killing people while cutting the mechanisms we have for keeping people alive and healthy, then it is a betrayal of everything that makes this country great."

WATCH:

Part 2:

Comments

[Marvin Purser]

12:02 PM on 08/14/2011

I JUST READ YOUR ATTACK ON OBAMA. OLBERMANN IS MY FAVORITE NEWSMAN, HOWEVER THE WEAKNESS OF HIS REMARKS ARE HIS IFS. THAT IS,MAKES CHEAP JOURNALISM.

OBAMA IS RIGHT TO RAISE THE AGE TO COLLECT S.S. SINCE WE ARE LIVING LONGER
AND OUR CONTRIBUTIONS DON'T MATCH THE PROMISE THAT WAS MADE I AM 74 AND WHEN I WAS BORN, MY GENERATION WAS EXPECTED TO LIVE LESS YEARS WHEN THE FIGURES WERE CALCULATED THEN WE, ON THE AVERAGE, ACTUALLY DID. WHAT IF S.S. WERE BROKE WHEN I WAS BORN? THEN AT 74 AND MAYBE 84,
S.S. WOULD BE BROKE ALREADY.

[norkas]

02:54 PM on 07/22/2011

Some people have a misunderstanding that if we lower Corporation taxes then he will have very good job growth.

This is not true at all First off many business receive tax breaks in so many categories you would be shocked.

With a very good accountant a business will pay very little taxes legitimately because of write offs and investments.

Out sourcing of jobs will continue to boom and causing more unemployment because big America business can pay 50% to 75% for labor cost overseas.

This is what it causing real harm to America.

Get out of iraq and Afghanistan cuts spending on military.

Add a 3% tax on anything over $600,000 in earning. This means if someone make $800,000 the person will pay 3% on $200,000 which is an additional $6,000 . This will add up big time and truly help to keep certain programs that need to be kept intact.

[GetItRight4aChange]

11:50 AM on 07/20/2011

Hopefully Obama will listen to Obermann. That way he will be soundly defeated in 2012.

[mrhandyman3105]

11:59 AM on 07/17/2011

I didn't perceive Keith Olbermann as "tearing into Obama" or as him giving a "blistering" warning.

To me it was a "stern" warning to "everyone" as to what the republican party wants to at the expense of the country as a whole, and to Obama if he lets it happen. Also it was a very strong reminder to everyone as to what defines and sets this nation aside from other nations.

[FRANREED]

08:22 AM on 07/17/2011

Don't balance budget on backs of seniors. I'm 73 yr. old senior barely surviving on SS and
$20. week food stamps. I don't have extra for a book of stamps nor shampoo nor enough food.
I don't smoke, drink, nor eat meat. We can end the war, tax billionairs fair share, and not
give subsidies to oil companies. I helped thousands when I worked as a health educator in
jobs that ended fudning and no benefits. I started one of first WIC nutrition programs , cared
for aging parents and survived years of strokes. I tried to post video but it wouldn't let me.

[GetItRight4aChange]

12:07 PM on 07/20/2011

First of all, none of these measures affect people already receiving SS--the Democrats keep omitting this when they go on their tirades. With our current spending and budget growth, we could not balance our budget with the ENTIRE INCOME of billionaires. We need to lower corporate taxes (we currently have the highest corporate taxes in the industrialized world) and close tax loopholes, which would actually result in proper effective tax rates for the wealthy. We also need to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a combination of high deductible insurance and health savings accounts. WE CAN SPEND OUR HEALTH CARE DOLLARS WAY BETTER THAN GOV'T. You do NOT want them to gain control of these dollars! Obama took 500 billion out of Medicare to pay for the commencement of Obamacare.

These measures will encourage corporations to bring jobs and money back into our economy. It will allow business to make long-term plans for expansion and hiring. That will decrease the number of people receiving unemployment and raise the number of people with jobs, ie, paying taxes, both of which increase revenues without raising taxes on the middle class.

[FRANREED]

01:11 PM on 07/20/2011

I am stunned. I thought I would receive letters from
people agreeing with me or even sending me
a few dlollars or postage stamps or cans of
beans or soap. I never dreamed I'd receive a letter like
yours. I No, the insurance companies CANNOT spend
the money better than the gov. That is a LIE. The insurance
company just denied my grandson emergency surgery on
his painful back . Their job is to say NO to any requewstws.
Medicare works and works well. I get good care. There is not such
thing as Obamacare. There is health care for people just exactly
like the very good Medicare. Obama has his own health insutrance.
This is an absurd name for the gov. helping us not die. If will die
if they end Medicairre. My blood pressure is through the roof and
I could not buy my pills. There are many ways. One is to end the
war in Afghanistan. The second is to give immigratino reform. When the
workers have 9 good social security numbers, they will GLADLY pay
tax deductions and social security deductions, plus fees to fill out the
forms and all of this debt will be over. My dear departed father worried
about the debt every day , but his ideas were correct. I'm sorry you
have been so misinformed. I hope I get some kind answers in my
horrible situation that I can barely endure. God Bless you, Fran

[Oldchef]

08:55 PM on 07/20/2011

The attempt to distract seniors already on Medicare won't work. We care about our children's future too. Any plan tied to the stock market is unsafe. Depending on the compassion of insurance companies to defend your health? Ridiculous.

Massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations resulted in fewer jobs in the US over the last 10 years, they just hoard the money, send it overseas to avoid paying their fair share of even that smaller tax, and pay lobbyists for even more tax cuts. Why would we believe more cuts will do anything to produce more jobs when it hasn't worked for 10 years now?

[chance1946]

06:53 PM on 07/16/2011

Keith is right on.

[GetItRight4aChange]

12:29 PM on 07/20/2011

or he's ON something.

[Dan Pettitt]

08:19 AM on 07/16/2011

While I appreciate Keith as a journalist, in this instance I find his due diligence to be sorely lacking. The GAO projections for the debt are very simplistic and have been replicated on a plethora of websites, which allow laymen such as Keith to conduct scenario analyses. Spending more than 10 minutes on these sites leads one to an incontrovertible truth that the only way to save either entitlement programs is to raise the retirement age to 71 and align medicare eligibility with social security. Bottom line programs designed and funded to support 5-10% of the population when instituted cannot be used to fund 25-30% of the population (the math just doesn't work). If we do these changes NOW we can save a whole world of pain and may even lead to earlier privately funded retirement as traditional investments increase their return due to improvements in our capital markets.

As an aside, my 11 year old daughter recently conducted the aforementioned exercise. Interestingly the AARP version of the debt calculator makes it incredibly difficult to raise the retirement age (ie multiple pop up warning boxes, etc...). Clearly, many parties with vested interests are aware of this obvious arithmetic reality.

[mrhandyman3105]

12:05 PM on 07/17/2011

What changes? Cut tax breaks and subsidies or oil and corporations or cut the Social Security Benefits and Medicare for the elderly who need it like "Fanreed" the blogger just 2 blogs after yours.

[Acharn]

09:54 PM on 07/24/2011

Oh, come on. You really believe economic projections thirty years out? Even ten years out? Clinton's budget people projected they would have a deficit in 1999, just one year out. How did that pan out? The projection for Social Security is seventy-five years. Absurd. And that projection, which tries to be conservative, shows the trust fund is able to cover full benefits until 2036, and AT LEAST 70% of required benefits after that -- forever! So we have to cut benefits now, now, now? Is there no time for a little more thoughtful seeking for solutions? As for the budget deficit, not one cent of that comes from Social Security or Medicare. And it comes mostly from the Bush tax cuts and the depression we are still in.

[ruralwannabe]

05:52 AM on 07/15/2011

Who is the author of this article? Having asked that, I wonder if this is some kind of Republican tactic to foment dissent among Obama supporters. I keep reading that Obama is offering up cuts to SS but no names attached to the supposition. Why do they think that? When has he said it and who is saying that they heard him say it?

[David Carson]

06:21 AM on 07/15/2011

last time I checked, Olberman is anything but a conservative

[carolwall56]

10:50 PM on 07/14/2011

I fail to see why anyone would be for seeing our country backrupt on the backs of illegals and the 50% of the population who pay no taxes.Leeches and moochers I believe they are called. Non-productive human beings.
So I confused Keith with Chris. They really aren't that different are they?
And please, don't reply to me, Having read the first 2 visible comments here have made me sick enough.

[GetItRight4aChange]

12:31 PM on 07/20/2011

Chris was the one with the thrill up his leg. ; )

[treemonkey]

06:44 PM on 07/14/2011

Keithy, I really think you would have been better served to watch this hand play out. My guess is that Obama will finally walk away with all the chips, a raise in the debt ceiling while keeping social security and medicare intact, with the GOP receiving the public spanking that they have spent years asking for. Please do not yell out anything that might make the GOP leaders come to their senses at this point. They have a long fall in their near future, and I for one, can't wait.

Actually, go ahead and say what you wish. I do not think this current crop of Tea Party run, Norquist manipulated, and key blocker, Eric The Can't, Cantor pulling their strings, Republicans could jump out of their own way even if they could see the train headed straight at their party.

Go Repubs - say No again, and again, and again. Your comeuppance is right around the bend.

[Heiress]

02:17 PM on 07/18/2011

My dad liked to say "give them enough rope . . ."

[Acharn]

09:57 PM on 07/24/2011

And Lenin used to say, "The capitalists will sell us the rope to hang them with." So what?

[mecormany]

03:39 AM on 07/14/2011

Anybody who thihks Obama wouldh't cave like this, what have you been doing the last two and a half years. This guy has caved on HCR, Wall Street Reform, the tax cuts when he had the perfect chance to make the R's filibuster to the public exactly why they were willing to vote against UI extension if their masters didn't get to continue paying a smidgen in taxes, he still can't come out and say he's for same sex marriage, he dropped everything he campaigned on -transparency, a return to the rule of law, an open government, diplomacy not warfare, he's adopted almost all of Bush's foreign policy, ramped up drones and has six wars going on. And some people STILL belive this guy is a liberal who is on our side. He isn't. Olbermann has every right to be suspicious of him because at the end of the day he's owned by Wall Street too. Like it or not.

[F4flyr]

05:02 AM on 07/16/2011

mecor.....I'd be interested to know where these 6 wars are?...Iraq is done...there are no combat troops there...Afghanistan is winding down, there are no boots on the ground in Libya...never were...Obama skillfully got the UN to declare 'no-fly' for them, we took out AAA sites and then 'O' got NATO in on the action...we are not, nor is NATO, at war with Libya...get used to wars of the future...no humans, just drones being flown by AF pilots 8,000 miles away....what else do you think is happening, and where?

[JamesA1102]

11:13 PM on 07/13/2011

I've got to play poker with Keith, he can't tell when someone is bluffing.

[F4flyr]

05:06 AM on 07/16/2011

james...good post.....these people have never sat at a poker table, have they?...this guy of ours was raised on the streets of Chicago...my money is on Barack...

[GetItRight4aChange]

12:18 PM on 07/20/2011

He was raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. We still don't know how he got into Harvard and Columbia after having been a poor student at Occidental College. His educational records have been sealed (why?)

He didn't hit Chicago until he was 25 (and did cocaine by own admission)! His father's friend, a communist by the name of Davis, encouraged him to go to Chicago because it was a place that a black man could succeed (not my words). Didn't you even read Obama's books?

I guess you have schooled me about the intellect of those who elected Obama. No wonder this country is in a mess.

[GetItRight4aChange]

12:41 PM on 07/20/2011

So you are saying that the president has been playing poker instead of being president? All this time I thought he was playing golf and working as a consultant to the NFL--now that he's done with the NCAA brackets.

[JamesA1102]

06:48 PM on 07/23/2011

I love it when people like you try to put words in my mouth. It shows that you have no factual argument to make.

[Dave F]

11:01 PM on 07/13/2011

Keith, I think you're barking up the wrong tree here. Obama KNOWS the GOP won't bend on this. He KNOWS the Tea Party folks won't let their elected shills give a fraction of an inch. He KNOWS that the GOP isn't going to give in on tax increase, at all, ever.

So this is where what he is doing is brilliant: OFFER up the compromise. OFFER up more than they could possibly want, KNOWING that they will NOT TAKE THE DEAL. I mean, even David Brooks of the NYTimes saw this, and said as much! That they're dumb for not taking the deal!!

But they CAN'T. The TP folks WON'T LET THEM.

So again, you're focusing you're ire in the wrong direction. Obama isn't going to give in on the progressive ideals. Heck, look at the Medicare stuff he's put out there. SO WHAT if the age is raised to 67? The Affordable Care Act will then kick in to cover them! Still progressive ideals, yes? And the SS stuff? I'm betting that has more to do with raising the cap than anything.

But the GOP won't budge. They've painted themselves into a corner. And Obama has let them. And it's brilliant. He's finally realized the power he has as President.

It's a beautiful thing.

[Kimberlee Sullivan]

12:56 AM on 07/14/2011

He has and quite masterfully I might add! Gave them just enough rope to hang themselves! He pulled back the curtain and now we all know who the reptealiban serves, the rich, big corporations, and wall street!

I would never, ever play poker or chess with this man!

[catndryer]

11:30 PM on 07/16/2011

Well....its nice that you read Brooks' column. Unfortunately he is so busy trying to be the conservative that liberals will invite to their cocktail parties......that his positions rarely make any sence.....except to liberals.

Your argument, disqualifying anything related to the Tea Party doesn't quite stand up to the FACT of the November election results.

I won't try to convince you....you are clearly a pod person.....in the pod for obama.

[Dave F]

01:57 PM on 07/19/2011

Please provide some evidence or proof for where you think I am wrong. Otherwise your post is just a condescending pile of drivel - typical of what passes for "conservatives" these days, "The answer is the same answer it has been for 60 years: Lower taxes cures everything! Got a headache? LOWER TAXES! No job? LOWER TAXES? Pregnant? LOWER TAXES!"

It must be because you aren't able to grasp any concept bigger than the "individual" - "It's all about me, Me, ME!!"

What's it like be so narcissistic, self-centered and greedy?

[HeavyHitter]

10:53 PM on 07/13/2011

Keith is our canary in the coal mine. Trouble lies ahead.

[email4kh]

08:23 PM on 07/13/2011

A masterful piece of politics:
The President has continued to lead Republicans to believe he is actually stupid enough to walk a plank he's not responsible for.
The Constitution places absolutely NO responsibility for creating the federal budget on the President, and he's not going to take the huge hit for the task that is specifically assigned to the (GOP-controlled) House of Representatives.

Pass a budget, GOP-controlled House. It's YOUR job.

BTW, this is when the President starts making noise about taking entitlaments off the table.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[catndryer]

11:34 PM on 07/16/2011

Just one flaw in your theory.

The American People hold the President responsible for EVERYTHING.

That's how a goof like Obama got into the White House....by demonizing the last President for Everything.

Oh yes, my friend....with unemployment at 9% plus and Gasoline at $4 a gallon.......your boy will fold like a cheap lawn chair.

Prepare yourself.

[Max Martell]

10:42 AM on 07/18/2011

LEAVE MY PRESIDENT ALONE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU . HE WILL NEVER FOLD THAT IS WHY HE IS PRESIDENT AND YOUR NOT.

[catndryer]

11:37 PM on 07/16/2011

You might try keeping up with current events.

The GOP controlled house passed the Ryan budget MONTHS ago.
It stalled in the democrat controlled Senate.

The President....who you say is not responsible....presented a budget .....that didn't get a single Democrat vote in the congress.

You rally should stick to sports blogs.