What part of giving up your hard earned money to the wealthy does the GOP doesn’t understand?
Why math is useful: actuary tables and future values used by insurance companies and banks the world over tell me that, at the half century mark, after paying into Social Security and Medicare with every paycheck earned since my first job at age 14, the present value of my lifetime investment is well north of $100,000. The same holds for millions and millions of Americans under age 55. Now, everyone who wants to give away their 100k to super rich people and Exxon for absolutely nothing in return, please raise your hand. ... One has to wonder what part of that common sense reaction the GOP and a chunk of the Beltway media can't seem to grasp?
Some very wise comments from well known experts:
Ryan may claim — and he may even believe — that he’s facing a backlash because his opponents are lying about his proposals. But the reality is that the Ryan plan is turning into a political disaster for Republicans, not because the plan’s critics are lying about it, but because they’re describing it accurately.
Republicans are fooling only themselves if they believe they can get away from the fact that 235 House Republicans voted to pass the Ryan plan in April. They are forgetting their success in using the Democrats’ vote for health care reform to rout them last fall. The voters that handed them that impressive victory are now the same voters who have now turned against them.
The hard fact is every poll shows the Ryan plan – which turns Medicare into a voucher program and forces senior citizens to negotiate with private insurance companies – is unpopular with people over 65 and their children.
Republicans are getting clobbered on this. Keep reading.
On Wednesday forty radicals in the United States Senate took an extremist position by voting to end Medicare.
That simple sentence will be challenged by a lot of political and media people. They'll say I don't understand the popular mood, and that I'm applying my own values to Wednesday's vote. But I can prove this statement is true, using only a dictionary and some polling data. They'll even say they didn't vote to end Medicare! But that can be proved, too.
The problem for the GOP is that their dissembling about their true goal (ending Medicare) has been exposed. That's a killer, politically.
That role reversal — the supposedly moderate senator embracing a controversial conservative budget vision while his conservative opponent more reluctantly embraces it — is perhaps the best example of how the issue is beguiling Republicans across the country.
Most Republican candidates are smartly declining to take a firm stand on the issue, which is a tacit acknowledgement of just how dicey it is for them politically.
And relatively few are using it to try and stake out conservative ground in competitive primaries.
In case you don't believe Democrats are winning on this issue, read some more.
Okay, the Republicans stepped in it by stepping up and confronting Medicare costs, but the Democrats are guilty of just playing politics and so the smart people should give credit where credit is due, to the Republicans, right?
Wrong. The main problem with Medicare is the increasing costs of health care and that is a problem for Americans whether those costs are loaded into the Medicare system or happen outside it. In fact, the evidence, such as it is, suggests controlling costs works better IN Medicare than outside it. The Republican plan is essentially NOT a budget plan, it is a social policy plan that wants health care costs to be borne by individuals, as opposed to being part of a government insurance system. You can argue this on its merits, or on its ideology, but it fails the merits test.
But what about the Democrats? Aren’t they just as partisan and irresponsible in their blind embrace of party doctrine? That would be a no. They have shown a willingness to reform welfare, cut taxes, and even incorporate the bulk of GOP ideas on health care reform into their own bill. That is, the GOP ideas from when they still pretended they didn’t want to dismantle the federal program altogether. Republicans do not receives points for saying they want to do what they’ve always wanted to do. When the Republicans signal a willingness to include taxes in the budget discussion and the Democrats STILL won’t discuss Medicare changes, THEN a pox on both houses.
Yes, but you're not engaging in false equivalence. That fails Media 101.
Even the non progressive leaning blogs are getting it:
The Problem with the Ryan Plan
To follow on to Doug Mataconis’ post this morning about declining public support for the Ryan Plan, I can suggest one basic reason why it is trending downward: people are starting to learn more about it.
This is killing them. What were they thinking?
Added from Democracy Corps (D):
Disapproval of the Republicans in the House of Representatives has surged from 46 percent in February to 55 percent in April to a striking 59 percent now. Disapproval outnumbers approval two-to-one; intense disapproval by three-to-one. For the first time in more than a year, the Democrats are clearly even in the named Congressional ballot an 8-point swing from the election and Obama has made a marked gain in his job approval and vote against Mitt Romney with the President now leading by 4 points. This period captured the introduction of the Republican budget plan and vote by the House and voters do not like what they see.
SOURCE: http://www.dailykos.com/
