The only reform that the White House really takes off the table is privatization. He doesn't want to reduce benefits for current beneficiaries, but doesn't want to slash benefits for future generations. That's a key shift in language there. The President doesn't define "slash," and presumably anything that gets negotiated will be described after the fact as necessary to saving the program without "slashing" those benefits. There's also a nod to strengthening retirement security for low-income individuals and maintaining disability and survivors' benefits.

Nothing in this approach deviates from what Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson recommended on Social Security. They called for raising the retirement age over time; the President may not see that as "slashing" benefits, though they do amount to a reduction over time. Bowles and Simpson included a progressive price indexing component, that raises the benefit for those at low incomes modestly and cutting them for moderate and high incomes. That's in line with what the White House expresses as principles. I'm sure that the White House would call any deal as simply slowing the growth of Social Security, not a benefit cut.

Link

The meaning is clear to me.

He intends to CUT Social Security.  

Another bit of screwing around with words.  By slash, IMO, he's saying the cuts won't be a gouge.  I don't trust him there either.  He'll never be specific about what he considers to be slashing and what's a slash to Obama will probably be a gouge to people who need Social Security to have a chance at living in some kind of dignity during their most vulnerable years.

Any cut of any kind is not acceptable.

Then only sacrifice that Obama can countenance is on the most vulnerable in our society.  His "regrets" are, IMO, feigned.  If he really regretted such policies he'd dig in his heals and refuse.

From the NYT:

But, Mr. Obama said at a news conference, any such compromise to address Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the tax system is months away and will first require an effort to build bipartisan trust -- even as Democrats and Republicans battle intensely over how much to cut from the current year's domestic spending.

[snip]

Now some Democrats and Republicans are re-examining whether the political risks of raising revenues and curbing the most popular social programs might be outweighed by the urgency of addressing the looming budget impact of an aging population and rapidly rising medical costs.

[snip]

The White House has already opened back-channel conversations to test Republicans' willingness to negotiate about the soaring costs of Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security's long-range solvency and an income-tax code riddled with more than $1 trillion a year worth of loopholes and tax breaks.

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, all but invited Mr. Obama on Tuesday to start huddling about the issues, and a bipartisan group of senators held a third meeting to write debt-reduction legislation based on the recommendations in December of the majority of a bipartisan fiscal commission established by the president.

[snip]

After much internal debate about the political risks, House Republican leaders announced that their own budget for fiscal year 2012, which begins Oct. 1, "will lead where the president has failed and include real entitlement reforms" in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

But in the Senate, Mr. McConnell signaled a different approach. He indicated he is ready to negotiate now with Mr. Obama to curb entitlement program costs, which, along with military spending and interest on the national debt, are driving projections of unsustainable debt in coming decades.

"It doesn't have to be in public," he said. "We all understand there are some limitations to negotiating significant agreements in public. But we're still waiting for the president to lead."

[snip]

Mr. Obama, on the defensive at his news conference, said it was wrong to say the fiscal commission's majority report "has been shelved" and said "it still provides a framework for a conversation" between the parties.

But Mr. Obama also noted that while the commission majority was bipartisan, the dissenters included all three House Republican leaders who were members of the panel, including the new chairman of the House Budget Committee, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin.

"He's got a little bit of juice when it comes to trying to get an eventual budget done," Mr. Obama said of Mr. Ryan. "So," he added, "I'm going to have to have a conversation with him -- what would he like to see happen?"

How is it not clear to people that, just as with health "care," this will all be done and agreed to behind closed doors, and the Obama campaign people will then skitter out into the media like the cockroaches they are, putting their best spin ever on the travesty that will result.