Looks like Republicans are giving up on killing Medicare:
Senior Republicans conceded Wednesday that a deal is unlikely on a contentious plan to overhaul Medicare and offered to open budget talks with the White House by focusing on areas where both parties can agree, such as cutting farm subsidies.
On the eve of debt-reduction talks led by Vice President Biden, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) said Republicans remain convinced that reining in federal retirement programs is the key to stabilizing the nation’s finances over the long term. But he said Republicans recognize they may need to look elsewhere to achieve consensus after President Obama “excoriated us” for a proposal to privatize Medicare.
The truth of what happened here is pretty simple, and it has nothing to do with Obama’s excoriations, strongly-worded letters or lack of lunch invitations. Some more vulnerable members of the Republican caucus chickened out after a few slightly contentious town hall meetings, and Cantor is looking for some lame strategy to lay off the blame for his decision to let Paul Ryan’s political suicide note come to a vote.
Well, it’s too late for that. All but a handful of his caucus are on record as voting to end Medicare, and the 30 second ads write themselves. Now Cantor wants to say that Obama was the guy who saved Medicare. Fine — that’s short enough for Democrats to print on a bumpersticker.
Linda Featheringill
Obama saved Medicare?
Cool slogan!
Srsly, if BJ could get bumper stickers made [soon], I would bet that we would buy them and get the word out.
Hawes
I gotch yer bumpersticker right here:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-udl5oqfK4Lw/Tb7no1nAJYI/AAAAAAAAASI/XTMeBzWzq1Q/s1600/gothim.jpg
Linda Featheringill
It might be a fact though that the folks who went to town hall meetings and raised hell about Medicare are the ones who saved the program.
Perhaps we should think about this tactic.
Starfish
@Hawes: I didn’t know what to make of that at first. It seemed like a variant of the “Got Milk” commercials. Then I thought “Got Him” as in a milk commercial about Jesus, and everyone would be all over Obama’s Messianic Complex. Then I finally realized that this was about bin Laden. Would this be too complicated for teatards to understand?
Valdivia
@Hawes:
Excellent. The Atlantic made one that said ‘I Got Osama’ with the original O from the last campaign. It was pretty sweet too. Can we haz them?
ETA–the O was placed before the I Got Osama slogan, just in case you’re wondering ;)
Ann B. Nonymous
Dear PERSON,
You have been selected to participate in our fabulous new Free Medicare program! Please report to our Freedom Center for your Freedom Voucher and your free complimentary glass of Freedom Drink! Our staff will be happy to answer all your questions in person. Remember, freedom makes you Free!
Yours,
the Republican Party of Freedom!
cc: RP/JB/JG/AH
Mike
Cantor is pushing back against this meme, ‘cos he has to, which only helps us. The truth is different, of course, but Rush Limbaugh must be appeased, even if the congressfolk are scared shitless. I don’t know what they were thinking voting for this crap. Seriously. 2/3ds of the freshmen got voted in precisely because of Medicare scare tactics and lies about health care reform, and they thought they could get away with eliminating Medicare entirely? The dumbasses deserve everything that they are getting.
Cat Lady
Republicans are lying cowards and bullies, and if you knock them off their talking points, they can’t defend themselves and blame mean old Pelosi or Obama. What a bunch of WATBs, the whole lot of them. Why are we losing to these guys?
Valdivia
The line coming from Senate Reps, and which no one in the media corrects, is that they are saving Medicare. Rubio kept repeating this on Meet the Press this weekend and it’s the Demint line. I really hope they vote on it there too, so we can tag them with it.
Mike
@Linda Featheringill: We learned from the best! The teabaggers are pissed that we protested in WI and all that (and the townhalls were mild and spontaneous, unlike the ones in 2009). They invented the tactic, we only copied them. Imagine what the townhalls would have been like if AARP actually got off their asses and got involved in the fight. These weren’t organized by outside groups, but were actual, real normal non-political citizens who were rightfully pissed that the folks who claimed to restore medicare funding decided instead to eliminate the program entirely.
mai naem
Obama killed Osama and saved Medicare. Too long for a bumper sticker and not catchy enough anyway.
Can’t stand Cantor. He’s just a scumball.
burnspbesq
Don’t get complacent. This is a tactical retreat. The objective is unchanged.
Linda Featheringill
Any version of “Obama got him” would be good to see.
Gotta go to work. You folks have a nice day.
ornery curmudgeon
@mai naem: “Obama killed Osama and saved Medicare” … Sounds good to me…
Valdivia
@burnspbesq:
I agree. Just read at Ezra’s that they’re trying to skin the cat a different way, by eliminating the regulations that prohibit states from cutting the enrollees in the program. Jerks.
Linda Featheringill
Oh, I forgot. Happy cinco de mayo and happy birthday to Chuck of Chuck & Fred fame. :-)
dr. bloor
@Hawes:
Not my style, although it would be fun to roll slowly down the boulevard and watch wingnut heads explode when they caught sight of it.
Dave
Only this crop of idiot Republicans could first hold a vote on killing Medicare and then somehow make it worse for themselves by thinking the way to get out of their self-dug hole is to say “Obama saved Medicare”
Holy fuck, but Cantor is ten pounds of stupid in a five-pound bag.
Ash Can
Cantor can’t even pass the buck without fucking it up, can he?
Comrade Javamanphil
Politifact has rated this entire thread Pants on Fire. So we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
Fuck Yeah!!
JGabriel
“Dad yelled at us! Waahhh!”
If Cantor were president, he would have ordered Navy SEALS to leave the compound after Bin Laden excoriated them. Wuss. I was really hoping the House Republicans would hold on to that “Let’s replace Medicare with coupons” platform until the 2012 elections.
.
supedestroyer
If the Republican Party is not going to do anything to control spending, the growth of government, or the size of future taxes, then the Republican Party has no reason to exist. The U.S. already has one big spending, big entitlement, high tax political party. It does not need two of them.
Anyone interest if fiscal restraint now has no place in politics or governance. The message is quiet clear to anyone thinking about starting a business or being an entrepreneur and that is leave the U.S. now and find someplace that is interest in more than government entitlements and the nanny state.
cat48
Mitch Daniels loves the Ryan plan & told Balz he would adopt that & privatize SocSec also if he ran. Hope Obama “excoriates” him for it.
Jay C
@Dave:
Give ’em time: it’s becoming obvious that the Republicans have seen the hole they’ve dug themselves into over the whole Medicare issue: and as usual, they are probably just waiting to work up a new messaging campaign to have another go.
It’s all about the messaging with these people: I’m sure that their next step is simply going to be to start in with a new Party Line: Obama and the Dems are going to “destroy” Medicare, only WE can “save” it.
That “destroy” really means “keep it going as is” and “save” means “get rid of” is virtually irrelevant: once the Wingnut Wurlitzer springs into action, minor details like, oh, say, reality cease to matter….
Bob
HuffPo has this,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/04/eric-cantor-medicare-reform-report_n_857851.html
Cantor disputing the WP story
Valdivia
@Jay C:
They’re already doing it. Rubio said on MTP this Sunday that the ACA cuts And destroys Medicare while the Ryan plan saves it. J. Cohn at TNR hd a good piece on this yesterday saying their strategy to promote the plan is simply to lie. Bennen had a good piece on it too. Sorry can’t link.
WereBear
@Bob: Of course he’s going to dispute the story, but the Republicans have been lying for so long I wouldn’t believe them if they said they were on fire and I smelled smoke.
jayackroyd
And they can start by not ever again referring to “the Ryan plan” and start referring to the “Medicare-killing Republican budget.”
Mudge
Medicare elimination did not play well in the districts. The Republicans will likely remove it then deny it ever existed or that they ever voted for it. They will not allow questions about it, because the proposal no longer exists. Republicans are seldom punished for past misdeeds, by the Obama administration or the voters.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob: Good, I hope they keep on trying with something as obviously unpopular as the Ryan plan. More town halls, more protests, more votes and quotes for campaign ads. It’s their petard, so, I say, hoist away.
kay
@Valdivia:
In the Rubio interview, there’s no push-back because the person hired and paid to call Rubio on what are flat-out lies doesn’t understand the basics of Medicare or Medicaid. He can’t do the job. He isn’t prepared to question Rubio.
It’s really, really frustrating. People, voters, cannot make good decisions with bad information.
No one I speak with here understands what’s going on with Medicare or Medicaid, under either the PPACA or the Ryan plan. What’s worse, I think they’ve reached the point where they are tuning out, which happens when you’re fed a bunch of bullshit for two years.
I know I sound like a broken record, but I do not know how to fix this, and it’s a huge problem. They’re not getting the basic information they need.
John Weiss
@Mike: o yez!
Bulworth
This is teh awesome.
Bob
@WereBear: When I read the story last night I thought the Republicans were throwing in the towel rather quickly. I questioned the story. I thought about sending a link to friends but decided not to. It seemed out of character for Tea folk to give up on one of their premier projects just because the prez call bullshit on them. Time will tell. I don’t think the Ryan plan is going anywhere and I don’t think the effort to pass it is at an end.
PeakVT
@supedestroyer: Your tears, they are delicious.
Bob
@Omnes Omnibus: Word, brother.
cleek
@supedestroyer:
lead the way.
cleek
$10 says the GOP will, again, run on a message of “Dems are trying to kill Medicare”. they’ll say something like “the Dems are taking all the money which should be going to Medicare and spending it on the poor.”
and the Dems will agree with the premise, and will promise to do better.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Bob: Democrats in disarray!
kay
@Valdivia:
I don’t think political advertising (from either side) with punch through the resistance, because these people have been lied to. It’s so hard to get past the lies and then explain. It’s uphill.
I think conservatives, in a sense, poisoned the well on health care with that two year blizzard of unrebutted lies, because people are now cynical and resistant, so they just give up, drop out, and sort of “hope for the best!”.
Anyway, that’s the (admittedly anecdotal and unscientific) feeling I get talking to them one at a time.
iriedc
CouponCare vs. Medicare
PurpleGirl
@Mudge: But they voted for it and that vote is on record. The vote was taken on April 15th. They can try to fudge that but they did vote on the Ryan’s Path to Poverty.
evap
Not so fast. According to Weigel, the Republicans/Cantor are backing down on backing down.
TheYankeeApologist
@supedestroyer:
But they ARE doing something, citizen! I assume you haven’t read the Ryan Plan? It’s bold, and bracing, and serious, and moves the debate!
It’s fascinating to me how people like you think. How far do you think you can shrink government and taxes? It’s not what we’re spending, mate, it’s what we’re spending it ON. Remember that when you’re driving over your pothole-infested roads while Xe and Sikorsky are installing new jacuzzis in the engineer’s lounge.
Valdivia
@kay:
No you *should* sound like that because it is very very frustrating. That jerk on MTP thinks that being aggressive in the way he questions, and being obnoxious. Like many in the media today they fail to understand that real actual pushback against untruth comes with facts and understanding of what one talks about not with being loud. Makes me very angry too.
rikryah
People understood VOUCHERCARE. it was a simple concept that folks caught on quick to it.
kay
@Valdivia:
It feels slightly ludicrous with the PPACA. Literally explaining it to one person at a time, I mean. And, these are people who genuinely need the information. They’re late fifties/early sixties (always) and they lost a good job and now are unemployed or underemployed, so health insurance is a huge worry. Internet access is a huge issue, because they’re really at a disadvantage w/out it.
It’s a big country. This could take a while, if we’re going one at a time :)
Emma
Superdestroyer: If you’re interested in little government control, they tell me Somalia has a great deal going.
If, however, you want to start a business, according to the Wall Street Journal in November 2010, the top five places to start small business were Denmark, Canada, the US, Sweden, and New Zealand. Now, the WSJ was looking primarily at the amount of red tape the prospective business person had to go through.
However, one very interesting thing is that four out of five in those places is that four out of five have a decent to strong safety net. So your would be most likely to succeed in a sushialist paradise.
Chris
And he’s got to get this “Republicans are going to kill Medicare!” meme off from around his neck quick, before it becomes a 2012 election theme.
I don’t get the Republican obsession with privatizing the welfare state. At all. Every time they try, the backlash freaking destroys them… Gingrich in 1995, Bush in 2005, and now this. People, by something like 70-75%, do not want Social Security and Medicare privatized – period. This is absurd: even Democrats have the good sense not to push for things like abolition of the death penalty when they have those kinds of numbers against them.
Valdivia
@kay:
I hope you’re right. As usual you know that the Village will promote the ACA destroys Medicare Ryan Saves It line.
MagicPanda
@Valdivia: I believe that these things move in cycles. Objectivity has not always been the standard for news (before Cronkite there was Murrow, and before him, Hearst). Also, I don’t know the whole story of Buckley casting out the Birchers, but apparently the GOP has already had a cycle or two of crazy people infecting their ranks, and then pushing back on that craziness.
In the long run, I think that news and our political discourse will both improve, but it may take another 20 years or so.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: True believers.
Valdivia
@kay:
The FSM bless you for what you do. I have been doing my own with my boyfriend who grew up hyper conservative but has now realized he is a marxist waiting to happen. Patient explanation has helped. I figured if I can make him see the light, doing it with people who simply have no ideology just misinformation would be easy.
@MagicPanda hope you’re right!
kay
@Valdivia:
I think I would do a mass mailing. Not on Ryan’s plan, but on the PPACA. A lot of people still rely on the mail. Just basic information on what the law is and what it offers, and a timeline, so if you’re a person who has to plan you’d have that information.
Republicans would scream bloody murder, but the hell with that. This is a LAW, not a “plan” so this is informational, not political.
Along the lines of those estimated benefits SS sends out. Just straight information.
Valdivia
@kay:
I actually think what the WH or the Dems need to do is create a nifty web app–like the calculate your tax thingy that they did the last time around–so that people can actually see exactly how it works and when it kicks in. It would supplement the mailer because as you say a lot of people don’t have internet in that cohort. But the app would make it clear by just plugging in the age and state and stuff. I got an email from Deb Wass-Sch asking for suggestions I am going to put this plus yous idea if you don’t mind?
Chris
@Omnes Omnibus:
I suppose, but damn, you’d think they’d wise up. You don’t see Democrats running on death penalty abolition anymore, because the idea’s a political nonstarter and all it does is get us killed before we even get off the ground.
Mike in NC
And Republicans remain convinced that the earth is flat and Obama is a Muslim who was born in Kenya. So what else is new?
kay
@Valdivia:
I like the mailer because people bring me those SS estimates all the time. They love them. Sending those out (straight information) is the best advertisement for retaining social security intact, as a public program I could ever imagine.
I’m amazed the douchebags on the Right didn’t block the dissemination of information there, on SS, because those letters are a powerful thing. In your HAND. It was a great idea, not only in terms of actual information getting to people, but in terms of protecting SS from Wall Street.
Valdivia
@kay:
yes, see your point on the mailer. Especially if the ACA mailer comes with official seal saying These Are your Rights Now.
catclub
@ornery curmudgeon:
“Bush: Tried to kill SS, Lost Osama.
Obama: Killed Osama, Saved medicare.”
gex
So basically, he gets to go into 2012 with: I got Bin Laden and I saved Medicare. Not bad offense on what the Village *insists* are Democratic weaknesses.
kay
@Valdivia:
The “official seal” is vitally important:) Some of it is trust, and trust seems to have been fundamentally breached in some way here.
During the Clinton impeachment, I kept coming back to the idea that conservatives (and the pundit-lawyers who stupidly bought into the crazed witch hunt) were discrediting that process. In a way, immunizing the next Presidents from what is a real and serious mechanism by using the mechanism is a frivolous and purely political way.
I believe that. I think impeachment as a process is discredited. I don’t know that we’ll see it used as it was intended to be used, ever again. The well is poisoned.
Very discouraging, so I try not to dwell on it, but I think that happened.
catclub
“Republicans tried to kill Medicare.
Obama tried to kill Osama”
gex
@Cat Lady: Media is on their side, voter disinterest/inability to get good info/asshattery, and of course the blackity blackness of the Prez.
@catclub: I like!
Muley Graves
@supedestroyer: Which party is that?
You make a hell of a word salad. Consider yourself invited to my next garden party.
Valdivia
@catclub:
Teh Awesome! :)
@kay:
totally agree.
gex
@kay: It’s unfortunate. And sad too, because the Internet has really made it possible to become a better informed citizen if you want to be.
I just know too many people who argue from their feelings and beliefs. They don’t really think in terms of public policy. And if that’s how you approach things, then you don’t need to be more informed because you know what you feel is right.
You can’t tell them what the results of their favorite politician’s policies will be because they can’t weigh arguments and have been conditioned to think everything is a “some say this, others say that, who knows where the truth lies” issue by our mushy media.
So they need to feel the pain. And it’s pretty sad that after what we’ve been through in the Bush administration, many haven’t figured out what is causing their pain.
bemused
My rep Chip Cravaack (oh how it kills me to say that), is having 2 or 3 town halls in the district this month which I learned on a telephone Q & A from Cravaack this week. The Q & A call was surreal and utterly depressing.
Chip kept repeating that people 55 and older won’t see any change. From the Mpls Star Trib, he said he had to explain Ryan’s plan to his 80 yr old father in Ohio. “He’s hearing one side that says “Chip Cravaack is going to throw old people out in the street.’ ”
One caller said he was for 2nd amendment rights and an NRA member who wanted to know what the R’s were going to do keep the gov’t from taking away their guns.
A woman asked him how we were going to keep illegal aliens from getting in and from voting.
These are the ignorant saps that voted him into office.
Cliff in NH
@Mike:
They Got off their asses, Now.
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/159167-aarp-launches-campaign-opposing-entitlement-cuts-as-part-of-debt-ceiling-deal
http://www.aarp.org/politics-society/advocacy/info-04-2011/AARP-fights-against-threats-to-medicare-and-social-security.html?cmp=RDRCT-PRTCSR_APR26_011
Congress Must Prevent Harmful Cuts to Social Security and Medicare
Slashing benefits would reverse decades of progress.
by: Government Relations & Advocacy | from: AARP | May 4, 2011
catclub
@bemused: I heard one of those Telephone town halls a month or more ago. It was mostly misinformed people complaining about british style nationalized health care. If I had to listen to that non-stop I would be well over the edge.
Ignorant saps indeed.
PeakVT
@iriedc: Nice.
kay
@gex:
Again, just to be clear, I’m not in any way an expert, I’m speaking from the experience of the people who wander into this office and ask me health law questions, but all the “feelings” and “beliefs” drop away when individual people actually need information to plan or get some handle on their life.
That’s why the SS benefit letters are so effective. They’re personal, and they’re used that way. For example: people will say “I’ll have 960 monthly in SS”, and show me that piece of paper. If they hear a politician saying we have to cut SS (“reform” is the current weasel word, right?) they’re thinking “960 a month”.
I think the opposition can spend millions in political ads, and have the full benefit of media megaphones, and not TOUCH the power of that letter.
Robert Waldmann
You missed the shocking part. According to what you claim is a cut and past from The Washington Post, Lori Montgomery wrote “a proposal to privatize Medicare” in her own voice. According to all rules of Ballanced journalism and professionalism, she had to write “what Obama alleged is a proposal …”.
She even put her unprofessional claim that the Republican proposal to privatize Medicare is a Republican proposal to privatize Medicare in a sentence where she quoted Cantor. It is almost as if she dares suggest that he would say that which we all is true.
Also, just recently, she showed outrageous bias by discussing the CBO’x calculation of exactly why their 2000 estimate of the current debt was off by a few trillion. As a shameless liberal, she discussed a graph illustrating actual numbers — Arabic numbers !
gwangung
@supedestroyer: Dude, you’re the moron who keeps whining that minorities can NEVER become Republican because….because….well, just BECAUSE.
And that was AFTER I pointed out to you that half of young Asian Americans leaned Republican in the 1990s, you had elected Asian American Republicans and several instances of Democrats using racial slurs against Asian Americans.
The REAL reasons Republicans can’t make headway with minorities is that you’re too stupid, too lazy and too out of touch with how the world REALLY works (I mean, really; the entitlements you’re screaming about make it EASIER to start a business–one of the biggest headaches for small businessmen is health care costs).
tejanarusa
to kay @ 50 and 74: I guess you haven’t read the news that to save money, Social Security has stopped sending out those letters. As of now.
April letters were the last ones.
I’ll look for a link – think I saw it over the weekend.
tejanarusa
Here’s a link – small correction. It says “suspension” is in April, but people who would normally get their letter in July will be first group who don’t get one.
http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/kiptips/archives/social-security-suspends-mailing-of-statements.html
Robert Waldmann
I shoulda read the thread before commenting. I was about to predict that Cantor’s staff was at least privately protesting the article. Up-thread Bob informs us that Cantor’s office is publicly disputing the main claim in the story. Their response is a classic non-denial denial.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/04/eric-cantor-medicare-reform-report_n_857851.html
“Asked whether that meant Republicans were sticking with Ryan’s version of Medicare reform once talks began at the Blair House with Vice President Joseph Biden on Thursday, Dayspring replied: “The starting point is the Ryan budget, period.””
Ah we are not intimidated. We shall screw our courage to the starting point.
I mean really saying you will start with something when asked if you will stick with it is a bit blatant no ?
Charles Solomon
“The Republicans … will try to make people believe that everything the Government has done for the country is socialism. They will go to the people and say: “Did you see that social security check you received the other day—you thought that was good for you, didn’t you? That’s just too bad! That’s nothing in the world but socialism. Did you see that new flood control dam the Government is building over there for the protection of your property? Sorry—that’s awful socialism! That new hospital that they are building is socialism. Price supports, more socialism for the farmers! Minimum wage laws? Socialism for labor! Socialism is bad for you, my friend. Everybody knows that. And here you are, with your new car, and your home, and better opportunities for the kids, and a television set—you are just surrounded by socialism! Now the Republicans say, ‘That’s a terrible thing, my friend, and the only way out of this sinkhole of socialism is to vote for the Republican ticket.’”
Harry S Truman” 1947
Chris
@Charles Solomon:
Good quote.
The man also said “if you want to live like a Republican, vote Democrat.” I admit, I heart Harry Truman.