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It’s actually pretty easy to do what the rich and powerful people want you do. After all, they are the ones that can give you jobs and money. This is why it is dishonest for reporters to describe the decision by people associated with the several of the deficit commissions to refer to proposals to cut Social Security and Medicare as “tough” decisions.

Given the constellation of power in the United States, these are relatively easy decisions. The really touch decisions would be to confront the doctors’ lobbies, the pharmaceutical industry, the health insurance industry and Wall Street. People like the co-chair’s of President Obama’s commission, Erskine Bowles and former Senator Alan Simpson, lacked the courage for these tough decisions.