the challenge was to minimize political damage from cuts to entitlement spending. “It wasn’t about developing policy,” Goeas said, “it was about selling it.” The solution, it appears, was to avoid the frank use of the word “cut” when talking about Medicare or Social Security. “There was discussion that you could deal with it as ‘getting your money’s worth out of the government,’ ” said Goeas. “You could talk about it as ‘more effective’—but not as cutting it. It had to be more about ‘efficiencies.’ That
