House Progressives Urge Obama to Take Entitlements Off Table

The House Progressive Caucus told President Obama Thursday that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security entitlement programs should be off the table in any negotiations over raising the nation's debt limit. They added that any deal must include an increase in revenues in order to pass muster with their voting bloc.

"The discussions to this point have dealt with a very narrow area of budget priorities and have not included the whole spectrum that needs to be on the table," said Progressive Caucus co-chair Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz.

The progressives plan to send a letter to the president outlining the objections of the caucus to entitlement cuts.

They say that recent reports that the Obama administration is considering cuts to the entitlement trio are disappointing, but that progressives have not given up on the man they helped to put in the Oval Office in 2008. "There's a sincere effort on the part of the president to try to come up with a mechanism and a deal to raise the ceiling," Grijalva said, "Has he abandoned the progressives on this issue? I don't think it's as simply ideological as that."

"If a deal involves Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid that has political consequences that would befall both parties," Grijalva predicted.