Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousands words and the one above, should get across the point we're making this morning. Wednesday night, Sioban Hughes, writing for the Down Jones Newswires, hit the transom with these points from an interview Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor did in that day's Wall Street Journal, the parent company:
--Cantor: Government promises 'aren't going to be kept for many'
--Cantor: Younger Americans will have to adjust
--Cantor: Americans will see current cutbacks as paring back government waste
Republicans will continue a push to overhaul programs such as Medicare, saying in an interview that "promises have been made that frankly are not going to be kept for many" and that younger Americans will have to adjust.
"What we have to be, I think, focused on is truth in budgeting here," Cantor told the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal. He said "the better way" for Americans is to "get the fiscal house in order" and "come to grips with the fact that promises have been made that frankly are not going to be kept for many."
His comments suggest that Republicans are committed to overhauling entitlement programs such as Medicare even after President Barack Obama signed into law a debt package under which Medicare recipients weren't hit with direct cuts. Congress left Medicare recipients untouched directly in order to win enough Democratic votes for the debt package to become law.
But Republicans could make a new push to cut back on Medicare as the debt-reduction deal is implemented. The law initially provides for $917 billion in spending cuts over a decade, but a bipartisan committee of lawmakers must come up with a proposal by Nov. 23 to find an additional $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction. The panel's members--half of whom will be Republican lawmakers-- could try again to change Medicare.
"When we came out with our budget, we said, look, let's at least put people on notice, but preserve those who are 55 and older," Cantor said, referring to a Republican-written budget plan that would turn Medicare, now a fee-for-service program, into a program that subsidizes private health insurance. "The rest of us have got ample time to try and plan our lives so that we can adjust to reality here when you look at the numbers. Again the math doesn't lie."
So... voters completely rejected Paul Ryan's plan to kill Medicare-- you'll recall the election of Democrat Kathy Hochul in New York's mostly deeply red district (a district where Obama only managed to win 46%, his worst showing in the state)-- but the Ryan model is still what the GOP wants to hang its hat on going forward.
Or do they? Boehner and Cantor do. Ryan does. But their troops in the field? Tuesday Wisconsin state Senator Alberta Darling, not just a firm ally of Scott Walker's and the author of some of his most notorious anti-family legislation but a loud advocate for the Ryan budget, will be facing the voters in her recall election. She was considered a shoo-in... before she adopted Ryan's kill Medicare talking points. Wednesday she seemed to back away. Questioned by journalists in Milwaukee, Darling, whose polling has been trending down, said she now doesn't know enough of the details of Ryan's plan to endorse it-- though she already did-- but that she supports his "fiscal goals."
This is going to be the great debate that rages between now and 2012. Since Obama is totally conflicted and tied in knots, congressional Democrats have to make their own case that they are NOT the party of right-wing Austerity. Democrats are doing it quite well in Wisconsin. Tuesday will tell us a lot about how the rest of this election cycle plays out.
The congressional election in central Florida's 24th congressional district could be one of the most interesting to watch in the country. So far the race pits a right-wing zombie and notorious healthcare hypocrite, freshman teabagger Sandy Adams, against one of the Democrats' most cutting edge progressives, publisher and educator Nick Ruiz. The district will be subject to considerable redrawing and is likely to shed many of its Orlando suburban areas in Orange and Seminole counties-- including the Adams family home-- and consolidate in Brevard and Volusia counties along the Atlantic coast. The district was originally drawn by state legislator Tom Feeney for his own congressional race, which he won.
In 2008 Feeney's sleaze finally caught up with him and washed out his political career. Unfortunately worthless quasi-Democrat Suzanne Kosmas grabbed the seat, winning all 4 counties. She proceeded to vote with the Republicans on key issues-- like healthcare-- and distinguished herself in the Financial Services Committee with her lack of participation, spending committee meetings out on the town with lobbyists. And she did outraise her opponent 3-1. But it didn't help. This time she lost all 4 counties, Democrats and left-leaning independents simply staying away from the polls in droves, unable to distinguish between two anti-family conservatives, Republican Sandy Adams and Democrat Suzanne Kosmas. Steve Israel would like to see Kosmas run again. I'm sure Sandy Adams would as well. But she's been on a serious bender since her defeat and isn't likely to run again. Nick Ruiz is the first candidate for Congress Blue America endorsed this cycle.
Nick has been successfully presenting Florida voters a tapestry of Republican ideas-- a tapestry another Nick, this one in the NY Times Saturday, showed to point to the U.S. turning into Pakistan. And key to Nick Ruiz' thesis is the Republican attitude-- and specifically Sandy Adams' attitude-- towards health care. Short version, they're against it for anyone who isn't wealthy. Adams voted to repeal healthcare reform and she voted to turn Medicare into an inadequate voucher program that would be a virtual death sentence for hundreds of thousands of Florida seniors. Nick has a very different way of looking at it, a perspective that presumes healthcare is a right of every American citizen, something antithetical to the Ayn Rand/Law of the Jungle approach of the GOP. Nick:
We must decide, once and for all, what sort of society defines America. We have already decided that law enforcement (i.e. the police department) is a guaranteed service for all, regardless of social or economic status. We have also decided that the fire department is a guaranteed service. Our society, rightfully so, honors both of these public features. They are freely available to all, regardless of the size of one's wallet.
Why should healthcare be any different?
Social justice in a lawful commonwealth of society demands that when a person is attacked or threatened by crime or fire, the public will come to his or her aid. And when a person is attacked or threatened by disease, should the public not do the same?
We already employ an integral non-profit, for profit and single payer scaffolding to provide healthcare services. There is no reason to believe that all of these systems may not continue to work side by side in a free society. However, it is difficult to imagine that we can continue to allow profiteering to masquerade as uncontrollable healthcare costs that must consume such a large piece of our national income. Costs will have to be controlled through regulation. What is most important now is to take that final step and declare universal access to comprehensive healthcare as a standard public service, in the same way that fire and police services are a social norm everywhere. When will America realize that it is her ethical, logical, common sense and spiritual duty to provide universal healthcare services to her people?
America must no longer accept the false narrative of scarcity and withholding when it comes to healthcare. Social justice demands that all of our people receive universal access to all of these vital basic services. It is no great nation that denies these basic human services to people. In fact, anything less is uncivilized.
Adams, like most of the zombie Republicans have tried to claim that they didn't vote to kill Medicare, just to fix it. This morning, Paul Krugman examined that lie in the NY Times and concludes that Republicans "don’t want to make Medicare sustainable, they want to destroy it under the guise of saving it... in voting for the House budget plan, Republicans voted to end Medicare."
Last week Democrats on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce put out a report that shows very specifically what the impact of Sandy Adam's vote to kill Medicare would be on the residents of Volusia, Orange, Brevard and Seminole counties that are part of FL-24. It's a chilling picture and it shows what happens when a mindless partisan like Adams just follows along with the herd. She believed Paul Ryan's and John Boehner's lies about how their budget would be "good" for Medicare. But the Ryan budget "raises costs for seniors and individuals with disabilities enrolled in Medicare, reduces their benefits, and puts private insurance companies in charge of the program. For current beneficiaries, important benefits – such as closing the hole in Medicare’s drug coverage – would be immediately eliminated. For individuals age 54 and under, Medicare’s guarantee of comprehensive coverage would be replaced with a “voucher” or “premium support” to buy private health insurance. By design, this federal contribution does not keep pace with medical costs, shifting thousands of dollars in costs onto the individual." This is what Sandy Adams decided to do to her own constituents. This is what she voted for on April 15th; her idea of what's "good" for Medicare would
• Increase prescription drug costs for 8,800 Medicare beneficiaries in the district who enter the Part D donut hole, forcing them to pay an extra $87 million for drugs over the next decade.
• Eliminate new preventive care benefits for 122,000 Medicare beneficiaries in the district.
The Republican proposal would have even greater impacts on individuals in the district age 54 and younger who are not currently enrolled in Medicare. It would:
• Deny 570,000 individuals age 54 and younger in the district access to Medicare’s guaranteed benefits.
• Increase the out-of-pocket costs of health coverage by over $6,000 per year in 2022 and by almost $12,000 per year in 2032 for the 127,000 individuals in the district who are between the ages of 44 and 54.
• Require the 127,000 individuals in the district between the ages of 44 and 54 to save an additional $29.7 billion for their retirement-- an average of $182,000 to $287,000 per individual – to pay for the increased cost of health coverage over their lifetimes. Younger residents of the district will have to save even higher amounts to cover their additional medical costs.
• Raise the Medicare eligibility age by at least one year to age 66 or more for 72,000 individuals in the district who are age 44 to 49 and by two years to age 67 for 438,000 individuals in the district who are age 43 or younger.
No one knows for sure what the new 24th CD will look like. Rumors are flying that Republican powers in Tallahassee want Adams out and that hey plan to create a district she won't rake in a GOP primary. Replacing her with another Republican rubber stamp isn't the answer though. Replacing her with a tough, savvy progressive, Nick Ruiz, is exactly the answer. If you can, please consider contributing to his campaign at the Blue America page. Below is the ad Blue America has been running in the district:
