entitlements and entitlement reform. despite the fact we know it s the holy grail, what walden did really looks like political pandering. it s a way of getting out there saying yop the seniors to get mad at me even though we re the party that cries budget reform, don t touch seniors. it doesn t smell good. but we know what he s doing. it s not that changing the way social security does is somewhat unpopular. it s really unpopular. they ve tested this every which way from sunday, and he s out there saying don t do it. it s very unpopular but so is tinkering with medicare too which were republicans were all for. this thing in some ways might hurt republicans credentials in trying to reform entitlements. we saw in the obama health care law, republicans said president obama is trying to cut $716 billion from medicare. then republicans assume that in their own budget. on top of that you have this and that hurts them i think. they really did. the other obviously we re
inflation would go ahead with increases for social security recipients, for example? well, once again, you re trying to balance this budget on the backs of seniors. and i just think it s not the right way to go. okay, again, that was a republican saying that. that was not bernie sanders, that was not robert reich. that s who had been criticizing the president on change cpi, starting last friday. here s the other rub, republicans, including house speaker john boehner and senate minority leader mitch mcconnell support this change in the so-called chain cpi. apologies for keep using that washington speak. the private and public pressure for walden to retract those comments began immediately. the conservative club for growth said in a statement, greg walden doesn t seriously oppose even the most modest of reforms for social security, right? greg walden ought to think about clarifying his remarks on chained cpi and think about clarifying soon. i m sure his constituents would like to kn
well, walden is standing behind what he said, in a statement provided to us this morning, chairman walden supports the budget passed by house republicans that preserves and protects medicare and social security while also balancing the budget in ten years. he disagrees with president obama s political plan that hurts current seniors, just so he can pay for more wasteful spending. we hear this clarification, by the way, not sitting well, with members of the gop leadership. but this entire episode raises too larger points. one, it shows why reforming any of these programs is so difficult, because the political parties are ready to pounce on any type of change that s unpopular and trust me, folks, changing anything to sz enior citizens is unpopular. note that walden is probably reading plenty of these polls that indicate how unpopular this is. and trust me, i ve seen the numbers he s seen. it s unpopular. so he s seeing an opportunity to take advantage and save the republican majority.
are going to be somewhat similar and somewhat insync with our approach. but the approaches will be different. you will see different things treated differently, because we are not, it s not a group of 16, it s a group of 8. the house of representatives has different considerations than the senate does. and we need to get 218 votes. that s our goal. before i go, congressman diaz go ahead. you re going to reach relatively similar conclusions. congressman we ll have differences, but they ll be very similar. congressman diaz balart, i want to ask you one quick political question. greg walden, chairman of the nrcc, was very critical of the president s budget on the issue of social security and those changes on the cost of living increases and seemed to use some rhetoric that some republicans are uncomfortable with. do you agree with congressman walden about his critique of the president s budget on social security? i frankly haven t seen it. and to tell you the truth, i
haven t finalized reading the president s budget. there are things in that budget that i obviously am not going to like. i m hoping that there are some things that we can get together and start working on. but i frankly have not seen the comments of mr. walden, and i haven t finished reading there is widespread concern in the democratic caucus here in the house of representatives, with the president s proposal. so i will share that. maybe mario and i, we ve been locked up in a room with our staff, trying to get this done. so excuse us if we don t know, if we re not, if we re not up to date on everything. right. all right, guys. thank you very much. thank you for helping us kick off what we re doing all day today on this push on immigration reform. thanks for your work, thanks for coming on the show. our pleasure. up next, resisting reform. our poll shows a strong majority now support a path to citizenship. but there are some grassroots groups trying to squash any efforts. u