GOP Freshmen On Medicare Attacks: Let's Let Bygones Be Bygones

[NYcarbineer]

Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare was looney enough, but when he coupled it with defense spending increases and a huge tax cut for the wealthy he went off the deepest of the deep ends.

It's hard to believe someone that politically tone deaf could be in politics.

Class Warfare!

This country was founded on class warfare.

 

[Synthaholic]

This was my conclusion as well. I don't think they were expecting the reaction they have been receiving in response to their plan.

I give them credit for their plan. We have to start talking about Medicare. Their plan might not be the right one but the Dems are being dishonest not offerring any solutions.

The Dums have a solution: Class warfare!

The Regressive Party has been waging that war for years. About time the Democrats gave them some back.

 

[Toro]

Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare was looney enough, but when he coupled it with defense spending increases and a huge tax cut for the wealthy he went off the deepest of the deep ends.

It's hard to believe someone that politically tone deaf could be in politics.

Class Warfare!

This country was founded on class warfare.

Referring derisively to "elites" is also class warfare.

 

[EriktheRed]

Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare was looney enough, but when he coupled it with defense spending increases and a huge tax cut for the wealthy he went off the deepest of the deep ends.

It's hard to believe someone that politically tone deaf could be in politics.

Class Warfare!

Translation: I got nothin', but I can't just STFU, so I'll throw out this moldy little chestnut.

 

[Old Rocks]

Gee, Dems demagogue the Medicare issue and it's OK. The GOP does it and they need to be hammered. One sided much?

The Dums are the biggest fucking liars and hypocrites on the face of the planet. They attack the Ryan proposal even while their own program calls for even bigger cuts in Medicare. They oppose cutting spending. They oppose cutting gov't programs. They think they can just blame the GOP and it will all go away.

The Democrats didn't trick the Republicans into adopting "Medicare is not an option" as their mantra, nor did they invent that handy slogan--the Republicans themselves slapped a bow on it and offered it themselves. In fact, I think you're the one that brought my attention to that phrase. Thank you! It sums up their position very succinctly.

I do like that you apparently simultaneously believe that the Democrats are cutting Medicare spending more than Ryan would, yet they oppose cutting spending or cutting government programs. Sounds like a win-win--they're not only more fiscally responsible than Ryan which should play on the right, but they're also defenders of those programs the left looks on so fondly. That's some impressive threading of the needle. Or do you just do a sort of stream-of-conscious thing and write whatever bullshit pops into your head as it pops in, self-consistency be damned?

I should add that I don't think anyone's going to let bygones be bygones next time around. Voting to dismantle Medicare on the House floor is a BFD, as Biden would say.

Which entitlements have Democrats vowed to cut? Oh right. None of them.
What did Obamacare do to Medicare? Right, cut its funding radically.

It seems that your posts cannot stand first contact with Truth.

We are voting to kill corperate welfare. Then reduce the defense budget significantly. Do we need to spend more on military than the rest of the world put together? After that, a significant increase in taxes for the very wealthy. Then we can discuss balancing the budget on the backs of the most vulneable and least able to afford it in the population.

 

[initforme]

Class warfare? Cutting and hacking one of the good things the middle class has is class warfare. What else is it? If you tell millions of people that someday their medicare is going to be cut what do YOU THINK IS GOING TO HAPPEN? DO YOU EXPECT THEM TO SIT THERE AND GO "OH YES FOR THE GOOD OF THIS GREAT GREAT COUNTRY?" C'mon. WHen you stick it to the middle class they eventually wake up to the it. They shouldnt be surprised people wont stand for it. They have theirs, lets take some more away from the middle class.

 

[Toro]

Anyway, the truth is that older Americans really should fear Republican budget ideas — and not just because of that plan to dismantle Medicare. Given the realities of the federal budget, a party insisting that tax increases of any kind are off the table — as John Boehner, the speaker of the House, says they are — is, necessarily, a party demanding savage cuts in programs that serve older Americans.

To explain why, let me answer a rhetorical question posed by Professor John Taylor of Stanford University in a recent op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal. He asked, “If government agencies and programs functioned with 19% to 20% of G.D.P. in 2007” — that is, just before the Great Recession — “why is it so hard for them to function with that percentage in 2021?”

Mr. Taylor thought he was making the case for not increasing spending. But if you know anything about the federal budget, you know that there’s a very good answer to his question — an answer that clearly demonstrates just how extremist that no-tax-increase pledge really is. For here’s the quick-and-dirty summary of what the federal government does: It’s a giant insurance company, mainly serving older people, that also has an army.

The great bulk of federal spending that isn’t either defense-related or interest on the debt goes to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The first two programs specifically serve seniors. And while Medicaid is often thought of as a poverty program, these days it’s largely about providing nursing care, with about two-thirds of its spending now going to the elderly and/or disabled. By my rough count, in 2007, seniors accounted, one way or another, for about half of federal spending.

And in case you hadn’t noticed, there will soon be a lot more seniors around because the baby boomers have started reaching retirement age.

Here are the numbers: In 2007, there were 20.9 Americans 65 and older for every 100 Americans between the ages of 20 and 64 — that is, the people of normal working age who essentially provide the tax base that supports federal spending. The Social Security Administration expects that number to rise to 27.5 by 2020, and 31.7 by 2025. That’s a lot more people relying on federal social insurance programs. ...

Between an aging population and rising health costs, then, preserving anything like the programs for seniors we now have will require a significant increase in spending on these programs as a percentage of G.D.P. And unless we offset that rise with drastic cuts in defense spending — which Republicans, needless to say, oppose — this means a substantial rise in overall spending, which we can afford only if taxes rise.

So when people like Mr. Boehner reject out of hand any increase in taxes, they are, in effect, declaring that they won’t preserve programs benefiting older Americans in anything like their current form. It’s just a matter of arithmetic.

Which brings me back to those Republican freshmen. Last year, older voters, who split their vote almost evenly between the parties in 2008, swung overwhelmingly to the G.O.P., as Republicans posed successfully as defenders of Medicare. Now Democrats are pointing out that the G.O.P., far from defending Medicare, is actually trying to dismantle the program. So you can see why those Republican freshmen are nervous.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/opinion/13krugman.html?_r=3

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Gee, Dems demagogue the Medicare issue and it's OK. The GOP does it and they need to be hammered. One sided much?

The Dums are the biggest fucking liars and hypocrites on the face of the planet. They attack the Ryan proposal even while their own program calls for even bigger cuts in Medicare. They oppose cutting spending. They oppose cutting gov't programs. They think they can just blame the GOP and it will all go away.

Nahhhhhhhhhh.....we'll let the Republicans'.....

....Civil War....

......settle that!!!!

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