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Subscribe to RSSThe Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd explains how the Obama campaign will take on the Romney-Ryan ticket.
From the moment Mitt Romney announced House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate, the campaign debate has been full of charges and countercharges over some of the congressman's proposals on Medicare and the budget.
What are the facts? Here’s a guide to Ryan’s budget and his ideas for remaking Medicare.
If you are 65 years old or older and now receiving Medicare benefits, would Ryan’s Medicare proposal affect you? If so, how would it affect you?
No – if you’re receiving Medicare benefits now, Ryan’s proposal would not affect you.
His plan would gradually increase Medicare’s eligibility age from 65 to 67. But his phased-in increase in eligibility age wouldn’t start until 2023, 11 years from now.
Also starting in 2023, Ryan’s proposal would do away with Medicare’s open-ended payment system which now covers most medical costs for seniors. Ryan would limit Medicare spending for those born in 1958 and later, that is, people who turn 65 in 2023 or later.
People who turn 65 in 2023 or later years would get payments from the federal government to help them purchase private insurance; the payments would be higher for low-income people and lower for high-income people; they’d also be higher for sicker people and lower for healthier people.
The payments could grow over time no faster than the nominal annual growth rate in per capita Gross Domestic Product, plus 0.5 percentage points, but they might not keep pace with the increase in the cost of medical care.
Democrats have been on the offensive ever since Paul Ryan was announced as Mitt Romney's vice presidential pick. Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La., responds to attacks from the left over Ryan's budget plan.
So Ryan’s proposal would not have any effect on seniors, that is, on people who are now receiving Medicare?
His Medicare proposal would not affect today’s seniors.
But – and this is a crucial point – Ryan’s proposal for another federal program – Medicaid, the joint federal-state health insurance program for the poor – would have an impact on those seniors who rely on Medicaid to help pay for nursing home care.
As the Kaiser Family Foundation has noted, “Medicaid is the nation’s largest source of coverage for long-term care, covering more than two-thirds of all nursing home residents” and the elderly and disabled “account for roughly two‐thirds of (Medicaid) spending.”
Ryan proposes to convert the federal portion of Medicaid into grants to each state, allowing each to tailor its Medicaid program to its own population’s needs.
The federal payments to the states would be indexed both to the inflation rate and to the growth in state population. But overall federal outlays on Medicaid would be cut by roughly one-fifth over ten years.
According to an assessment by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the spending path as designed by the Ryan’s plan might allow states to “improve the efficiency” of Medicaid in delivering health care to low-income people. But “even with significant efficiency gains,” states would need to increase their spending on Medicaid, CBO said, (and perhaps raise taxes in order to do that) or “make considerable cutbacks” in Medicaid.
“Cutbacks might involve reduced eligibility for Medicaid” or lower payments to health care providers, “or increased cost-sharing by beneficiaries – all of which would reduce access to care.”
If you are 45 years old how would Ryan’s Medicare proposal affect you?
The Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd is joined by Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs to discuss Mitt Romney's running mate and his stance on Medicare.
Since Ryan’s proposal, if enacted, would limit Medicare spending for those born in 1958 and later, a person who is 45 years old today would – once he or she became eligible for Medicare – receive benefits that would be less generous or less comprehensive than those now enjoyed by today’s Medicare recipients.
And since Ryan wants to gradually increase the age at which people are eligible for Medicare, a 45-year-old would need to wait longer to get covered by Medicare.
If Ryan’s Medicare plan became law, then starting in 2023, the CBO said, “Most elderly people would pay more for their health care than they would pay under the current Medicare system.”
What’s Ryan’s argument for treating future retirees – those born in 1958 and later – less generously than today’s Medicare recipients?
Ryan says the future costs for Medicare and Medicaid are unsustainable and will lead to tax and debt burdens that will be unbearable.
“We need to preempt and avert a debt crisis” which would force immediate cuts in Medicare and other programs, he told NBC’s David Gregory last year on Meet the Press. “And the way we propose to do that is do it on our terms and prevent people who are currently retired and people about to retire from having severe disruptions in their lives.”
Republicans have charged that President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul is now cutting Medicare spending by more than $700 billion. Obama, not Ryan, is the one hurting seniors, they say. Is this true and if so, are Obama’s Medicare “cuts” similar to or different from Ryan’s proposed reductions in future Medicare spending?
According to the CBO, if Obama’s health care law were repealed, then $711 billion in reductions in Medicare spending over the 2013–2022 period would not occur.
Even Obama campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday referred to “the $700 billion cuts in Medicare that the president achieved through health care reform.” She said these cuts are “taking subsidies away from insurance companies, taking rebates away from prescription drug companies.”
But that’s not where all of the cost savings will come from: a significant portion of the $711 billion will come from curbing payments to hospitals and other health care providers. Other cuts may be ordered by the Independent Payment Advisory Board, an outside group mandated by the Affordable Care Act.
In contrast to Ryan’s future reductions (starting in 2023) Obama’s reductions in Medicare spending are taking place now – at least the Affordable Care Act orders them to occur and the CBO assumes they will occur.
But it is too soon to judge whether these reductions are providing the same level of care to seniors as before, but simply providing it more efficiently, or whether some seniors are getting (or will get) inferior care as a result of these reductions.
Republican national chairman Reince Priebus said on Meet the Press that Mitt Romney “appreciates and admires the work and the ideas that Paul Ryan has done. But Mitt Romney has his own plan” to reform Medicare. What is that plan?
As presented on Romney’s campaign web site, his proposal – although not fully detailed – includes most of the same ideas Ryan has proposed: not changing benefits for anyone now retired or close to retirement. But for future retirees, he would change Medicare from an open-ended payment system into one in which future beneficiaries would get a payment from the government to buy insurance coverage.
Romney’s proposal says, “If seniors choose more expensive plans, they will have to pay the difference between the support amount and the premium price; if they choose less expensive plans, they can use any leftover support to pay other medical expenses like co-pays and deductibles
Is Ryan’s budget plan, which was OK’d by the House last March, now in effect?
No, it isn’t. The House approved Ryan’s fiscal year 2013 budget resolution in March by a vote of 228 to 191, with no Democrats voting for the proposal and 10 Republicans voting against it. But the Senate has not adopted any budget resolution for FY 2013, which begins on Oct. 1. So in the coming fiscal year, as in the current fiscal year, Congress will operate without any budget. But spending will of course continue.
Apart from turning Medicaid over to the states and redesigning Medicare for future retirees, what else would Ryan’s FY 2013 budget proposal do?
It would cut overall spending by about 12 percent over the ten-year budget window, as compared to the spending plan proposed by Obama; it would cut cumulative deficits by more than 50 percent. Among other things it would limit federal aid to college students and concentrate it on lower income students.
Does Ryan want to cut taxes for rich people, as Democrats charge, and if so by how much?
His FY 2013 budget proposal seeks to have only two income tax rates: 10 percent and 25 percent. The current top income tax rate is 35 percent – so this rate reduction could mean a tax cut for some people -- but Ryan also says he wants to “broaden the tax base” and get rid of “the burdensome tangle of loopholes that distort economic activity” by abolishing many tax breaks. He hasn’t specified which ones he’d seek to eliminate.
Leave a Comment:
We need a dual system for all ages, private for those who can afford the top end and often wasteful level of care (like many cosmetic surgeries) and fully socialiazed modeled after the VA System/Medicare/Active Military Bases/Indian Reservation Public Health, and to make it work economically we should give enough full scholarships with living expenses covered to the med students, nursing students, PA and NP students, heck including technicians at the highest skilled level, and they need to work say at least 5 years in the socialized med system to work off their scholarship just like the military MD programs. All the other countries that do this have more efficient and effective programs than the USA which is run by MBAs/MHA/CEOs for their bonuses including their buddies that went to the pharmaceutical and med equipment industries that gouge Americans. My guess is 70 or 80% of the public would be in the socialized system and love it like Vets do at VA systems, and the rest would want to pay for high end expensive care and luxury hospitals and clinics. Only in America where the repubs are in bed with the CEOs of this industry do hundreds of millions of the most productive workers in the world get this short of the end of the stick - yes check our productivity against any industrialized country and check their medical care access and costs, and you will see that the repub USA greedy folks want your health and sickness in their greedy hands so they can charge you anything they want and deny any care they want probably so they make sure repubs get great care and live their lives many years longer than dems.
Interesting that everyone is so gung ho about controlling the service dollars distributed to us when we're elderly but no talk of controlling the cost factor at the delivery point. Sounds to me like a huge problem down the road. Until the cost of delivering the goods is the focal point, all we're doing is saying the end user is at fault but the supplier isn't. Wrong way to approach the issue. Just curious if there's currently a difference in the pricing structure of medical procedures done by government doctors through tri-care and private doctors through medicare and private insurance. If so, why? Where's the difference stem from? Does anyone really believe that so called future competition for elderly patients via a voucher system is going to drive costs down? I don't. I've seen a lot of industries increase the number of businesses entering a market thereby increasing competition with no net effect on the prices paid by consumers.
Not saying I don't support a better approach to elderly medical services down the road, I do. Just want to see all the hard numbers before we go in and make radical changes that may have no net positive affect in the end.
So... Let me get this straight. I've worked all my adult life -- and contributed to Social Security and Medicare -- with the expectation that it would be there when I needed it.
Now Ryan and Romney are saying, 'Gee, thanks for your contributions over the past three decades, which have helped your fellow Americans. But guess what succah! You don't get any, because you're not 55 yet! Bwahahahahahaha!'
Uh... I do not agree to this arrangement.
Perhaps you should go back and read the article again, and again, and again until you get all the finer details Memorized.
Then maybe you wouldn't be making invalid points. I realize it is hard for you to swallow that MSNBC actually posted an article with facts in it that doesn't support the lefts talking points but you should get used to that.
MSNBC is seeing the writing on the wall. If they hope to have any access at all in Romney s White House they better start being a little more friendly to the Right, or at least neutral, or they will see themselves left out in the cold.
Oliver -
I didn't agree to any agreement in the first place. I dont want SS or medicare deducted from my pay at all from the first place. I have horrible news for you.....
THE MONEY YOU PUT IN TO THE SYSTEM ISN'T THERE! IT'S BROKE!!!
Thats what the government does. It tells you it will "take care of you" & takes your money then it spends your money on other things.
You want to be mad at someone... be mad at the people who made you pay into the system in the first place.
Also, let me get this straight, people want MORE of this program/behavior? People are fighting to KEEP this failed social experiment? People are arguing to Throw MORE money at this bottomless pit?
WAKE UP!
Take responsibility for yourself & your families.... Don't give that job to politicians in government!
Well fellas, not real good on the nursing home front, administered by Medicaid, Florida already has reduced payments to nursing home, skilled care facilities, further reductions, i.e., block grants will do what, really throw Granny under the bus. Hope the adherents to ryan's plan, as is, won't effect you if you have to make a painful decision. I took responsibility for my Dad and I am an only child, there comes a time when all the love, devotion, good in-home care can not cope with geriatric needs. Do you really believe that If, big if, romney gets elected that the ryan plan will go forward without further republican enhancements. I wouldn't bet granny's life on it. Meanwhile with all the slash and burn in ryans plan, the budget wouldn't be balanced until 2040, OMB. Over and out.
Obama 2012
As any employer knows, SS is a trust fund. Employers are held personally responsible for those payments. Not even bankruptcy protect them. Congress should be held personally responsible also!!! Having people invest SS is a recipe for disaster...look at the market in '08 and real-estate. SS is a safety net.
The article is pretty well written, and acknowledges that those 55 and older will not be affected by proposed medicare changes. Governor Romney's pick of Paul Ryan has lead both democrats and Republicans to agree that now - FINALLY - this race will be on the sharp division that exists between European socialism and American Democratic tradition when defining the federal government role in our lives. JOBS and the ECONOMY!!! NOVEMBER 2012!! The end of Obamunism!!!!
I think Romney said it best when he quoted Reagan. “It isn’t that liberals are ignorant; it’s that they know so much that isn’t so.”
In 2002 there were 39.9 million people on Medicaid, today there are 58 million and with eligibility requirements being lowered with the Affordable Care Act, there's going to be an estimated 90 million on Medicaid by 2019.
Medicare is going to contribute $700 billion or $600 billion (by Democrats math) to the Affordable Care Act so those services for elderly are going to be cut drastically resulting in fewer doctors taking Medicare patients and rationing.
Food Stamp growth has doubled since Obama became President and quadrupled since 2001.
According to the "Trustees" Social Security will be insolvent by 2033 (that's broke in case you didn't know).
The Democrats answer is to raise taxes on the wealthy which will certainly limit our economy but the hard truth is that it won't save these programs. Liberals will continue to support the status quo and will never be honest enough to tell us like it is because in their minds, we are stupid.
Does anyone who actually "earns their keep" really think that all these entitlements and millions upon million of people relying on the government aren't going to affect you? You don't have to be a millionaire to figure out that our country is going to need trillions of dollars to continue down this path and everyone who has a job will pay for these handouts. Paul Ryan is on the right path, he's telling us like it is whether we like it or not. Obama on the other hand just wants your vote.
ryan budget doesn't balance the budget until 2040, OMB hmmm.
Obama 2012
So the Presidents plan is in effect now and Ryan's plan doesn't happen until 2023 and the medicaid portion effects take place on people born in 1958 and later. So there goes that business model being put in place. Remember Plan D that Bush put out there and left seniors guessing. Naw Ryan, this is to confusing for seniors. Cut out the abuse and add tings back if need. Ryan has only created two bills in 13 years. One naming a post office (the new GOP'er trademark) and change the amount payed on a arrow. He is real bright, or should I say slick talker that has done little. In 12 years + he has only created and passed these two bills. Smart he thinks he is huh?
LEST WE FORGET . . .
In addition to Representative Paul Ryan advising Mister Romney on the domestic front on social justice issues, we also have the following men advising him on foreign Affairs:
John Bolton — Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security and Ambassador to the United Nations under George W. Bush. Bolton cherry-picked intelligence reports in the rush to war in Iraq.
Elliot Cohen — Defense Policy Advisory Board and Counselor of the Department of State during the Bush administration. Cohen pushed false claims that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.
Robert Joseph — Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security under George W. Bush. Insisted on including the false claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union Address.
Dov Zakheim — Comptroller for the Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush. He predicted that Iraq War spending would be billions less than it was.
Cofer Black — Department of State Coordinator for Counter Terrorism under George W. Bush. Black played a key roll in the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
Dan Senor — Senior Advisor and Chief Spokesman for the Coalition Provision Authority in Iraq under George W. Bush. The New York Times wrote that, ” As Iraq was entering its bloodiest days, Mr. Senor was a prophet and cheerleader for the Bush administration.”
All of these people were on the Bush foreign policy team. Now they are all on the Romney foreign policy team. In fact, Dan Senor, who was one of the most ardent apologists for the disastrous War in Iraq, has emerged as Romney’s chief foreign policy spokesman.
As a theme song let’s imagine Mary Hopkins singing: Those Were the Days My Friend . . . And in your mind's eye tell me you do not see George W. Bush flashing a knowing smile.
Foreign Policy advisors excerpted from:Huffingtonpost.com
Thomas, scary stuff that, back to bush and made up wars and America the Bully.
Obama 2012
Not a damn thing--when they get through with it. Luckily they have as much of a chance at the Presidency & the White House as Osama Bin Laden has from raising from the dead......
OBAMA /BIDEN ---4 MORE YEARS OF RECOVERY. If we let the Republicans win-4 more years of near depression.
Vote-Obama -forward
Rmoney-reverse
Now isn't that the dumbest rant I've seen yet. 4 more years of this disaster?
I think John Wayne would be turning in his grave knowing such a dumb fellah is using his picture...
Did your steel pot have a big dent in it? :)
Intrenching tool rusty little buddy?
Shelter half missing some stakes?
No pads for your cleaning kit?
Seriously sad reading a fellow vet posting that non-sense.
The measure of ones' country is measured by how they take care of their sick, elderly and poor , what kind of country do you want to live is the question, tough choices and no easy answers, we all need to put something in the pot , both candidates have some good points ," excess and deficiencies are equally fatal" !!!
Americans have a choice...we can follow Illinois which increased income taxes 70% in one year and still can not pay for programs, has the biggest political machine in all 50 states, and has the largest unfunded pensions/benefits in all 50 states.. -or-.. we can change horses and direction to correct mistakes holding back businesses and the recovery process...move to a balance budget and debt reduction and make adjustments to welfare, entitlements, cronyism prohibition, and how we deliver healthcare.....the choice is clear and the vote is coming....ONE and OUT.
Do you live in Illinios? If not which state?
gateway...
Where do you live? Whats your address? Phone number? U like asking people for their personal info? whats your ss#?
After W and war mongrel cheney, I have absolutely no desire to return to the same old same old policies. Once was enough.
Obama 2012
Amazing ...all of these libs are experiencing an economy with few jobs, higher gas prices, record welfare and they're worried about someone who ready to put forth a proposal to save medicare.
You have to wonder what their IQ score is !
Jeopardy Answer: When liberals say "the truth is"..
Alex, what is "When you know you are about to hear a lie"?
Correct!
Mission accomplished and deficits don't matter, were great answer also on Jeopardy of this country. CORRECT.
Time to CORRECT 12 years of big spending for America! :)
This question, whats in for me, 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
whats in it for the rich, $.$.$.$.
What's in for romney/ryon Mege $ from the rich. I guess to call them No Brainers, is putting it mildly. Stupid, is alot more real!
Where is Ryans private sector experience? He has been in Washington all but 2 years of his adult life.
Team Obama/Biden - None
Should address any concerns....
The President taught school, University of Chicago. That is private sector.
Yes, still laughing after that post :)
Next thing he'll be showing his transcripts....rolling now :)
Thanks for the smile and laugh for the evening!
Ryan's Medicare plan is a voucher and a prayer.
Paul Ryan is a Nazi. He is worst than the devil himself. He
is extreme in his views. He has orchestrated the whole deception that Barack
Obama's policies are flawed. He alone started
the repeal “Obama care” dialog. He is
the one that began talking about big government spending. His lies are
everywhere now. They have been repeated in the media and were started by the
man Paul Ryan (Aryan). He is the one behind the entire Washington D.C. grid lock. Don't be deceived by this demon.
Aryans are also called the "Church of Jesus Christ" but they are an cult and only want to preserve
their race alone. Everyone else is to be removed. You need to check this man’s
background and his associates going back 15 years. He was photographed with a
neo-nazi in Arizona. They supported each
other. There are some things most Americans missed during the meetings in
Washington where I saw Paul Ryan completely disregarded everything the
president wanted to accomplish and he pushed his own agenda. All TEA party
members are somehow connected with extremist and hate groups. The republicans
are notorious racists and they show it boldly. It will take 20 years to correct
things after they are done if they are elected. A young man will come up in
25-28 years called Chief Justice who will correct the damage that was caused by
the TEA party and the Republicans. You
have read correctly. Look out for Ramon Caspia in the future. Don’t trust him. Don’t
trust Romney/Ryan.
Terry Suggs
You are a true bigot and moron
Is it Nazism to promote following the Constitution?
Is it Nazism to believe in the principles of individual liberty?
Is it Nazism to believe in fiscal responsibility?
Morons like you would have called our founding fathers nazis
"The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves."
—Thomas Jefferson
"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816
" I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it."
-- Benjamin Franklin, On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, November 1776
“If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress… Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.” – James Madison, Letter to Edmund Pendleton, January 21, 1792
The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation.
Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, June 17, 1788
"Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government."
-- James Madison
"I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit."
-- President Grover Cleveland vetoing a bill for charity relief (18 Congressional Record 1875 [1877]
"I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity. [To approve the measure] would be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded."
-- President Franklin Pierce's 1854 veto of a measure to help the mentally ill.
NEW HOPE for America - Finally
Debates and November come fast
We need NEW LEADERSHIP for America
It's NO fun being on a losing team with a bad coach.
Yeah, we need Romney to lose. It's no fun handing the reigns back to the party that put us in this position.
Yes Ryan will be crying just like last year.
Thank you CNN for cutting through all the false claims and putting this in some perspective for everyone.
Ryan's plan is a non-starter for seniors.
The Political Wisdom of Forrest Gump:
The choice is clear as long as we keep reality clear in our minds and the reality is that the rhetoric doesn't ever matter as the politicians' actions will be totally consistent with satisfying the interests of their supporters who demand no less ... and the more support that is given, the more mega-millions that is poured into that support, the more tightly are the strings tied to that support. The abundant and slanted rhetoric offered about the issues is the necessary subterfuge aimed to rationalize, with deception and creative logic, in oder to seem authentic ... but the consistent reality is that the politicians literally have to be focused on satisfying their strong supporters. It is totally obvious when putting the subterfuge aside and considering what is at the heart of their actions, seeing the reality of who always benefits.
The Republican / Tea Party is owned and controlled by "the money" and over the last twelve years we have clearly seen their "puppet" performances in both the protection of "the money's" interests and their stubborn blocking and arrogant faulting of Obama's and the Democrats' efforts – literally they just have no choice and we should expect nothing else. The Democrats, while receiving a few sizable contributions, are largely dependent on the people for their support and power, which dictates they have to focus on the people's interests ... with the problem there being "all of the people's interests", with it then being hard to satisfy everyone, thus leaving opportunities for many to be conned and manipulated with appeals to biases, prejudices, fears, emotions and loyalties. In the final analysis, it should be remembered that the Republicans have no choice, no matter how they disguise it, but to cater to the 1% and that just leaves no room for ever satisfying the 99%. The rest is simply BS.
The Political Wisdom of Forrest Gump:
It's too funny watching the uneducated post comments to articles like this. I'd put just one comment out there for those that don't like cuts to any budget - How would you pay for it then? We have a HUGE debt and fiscal deficit that must be dealt with.
The simple fact is that "The Greatest Generation" was far from it - they put programs in place that are piling up debt (in obligations) and and the total Gov't spending is just not sustainable. Of course when so many are sucking from the Gov't tit, no one wants to see a cut so they pass the buck down to their children and grandchildren. This is tantamount to theft on the grandest scale. Thank you AARP for their lobbying for seniors to the point of a bankrupt U.S.
When it comes to things like Social Security, we need to increase the retirement age for non-labor intensive jobs, remove the FICA cap (it is a social program after all), and implement means testing (it was meant as a stop-gap, not a pension on its own).
If you all want the best non-partisan solution start reading "Comeback America" by David Walker. He has the credentials and the basic building blocks for the solution.
all, I didn't hear you screaming during the bush tenure, surplus to rags, plus nearly 5,000 Americans Boddy Bagged, where were you?
Obama 2012
Err, maybe its the change in the internet why you didnt "hear" anyone. Just an idea, i know it doesnt fit your argument, but im willing to bet its true.
Or did you expect everyone to get on AOL and cry about bush?
SS came from FDR. Medicare and medicare came from Johnson. So one came before and one after. Guess it is easy for you to be critic of both. You could only been an adult for one of them.
Why increase the retirement age? 65 is old enough to retire and enjoy your life after working for 40+ years. Romney and his cronies don't have to worry about social security or medicare, that's why they are so willing to cut them to shreds.
Lori
People are living longer now. Increasing the retirement age will help funding and reduce the benefit period.
I don't believe Mr. Romney is trying to shred these social programs. The problem is that we've know these programs have been in trouble, but our representatives have just kicked the can down the road.
M.J. Won't live longer under ryan's plan and Granny certainly won't if she needs to have skilled nursing care. Rationed health care, accused Democrats of that and now, well. Don't forget Seniors spend money too, they are also consumers.
Obama 2012
Amen skyparrot!!! It really bugs me that they call medicare and social security an "entitlement" program. You're darned right we're entitled to it. They take money out of my paychecks for it!
The Political Wisdom of Forrest Gump:
The Ryan Medicare Plan says that Medicare is now an expensive, un-supportable program--which we will preserve intact for people 55+. (We need their votes.)
If you are 55+ and think that younger people--who then can NEVER use this "expensive, un-supportable program"--will continue to fund it for YOU forever, you are being unrealistic.
The Ryan Plan does not "kill" Medicare for the 55+--but it starts the morphine drip.
We're forced to pay for public union pensions for people that retire in their 50s and then get another job in the same building for another pension. So please explain why this is worse?
It is suppose to be a morphine drip, a temporary thing, it is unsustainable like said pensions, so where do you see the problem? Suddenly a leftist isnt willing to pay for others for a short time.
truda, so what, you work for a company for 25 years, start when your 20, leave when your 45, work another 20 years for another company and you've earned two pensions, if someone puts their labor into a job to reach age appropriate and years of service then retire. Something wrong with that. You are telling me people don't deserve to have their labors rewarded. Military folks do it all the time. And most states have laws against double dipping while working for the state. Stop being a union hater, tell that to the emts as they pull you out of the gutter, or the fire fighters who pull your ass out of a burning building.
Obama 2012
Obama 2012
Yea sky, when that company is a state or city, yea there is an issue with that you union hack. But now we know where you stand, youre a union hack and nothing more, so everything you say is just going to be propaganda out of the union handbook.
BTW douche, dont compare an EMT or DOT or DLT worker to someone who enlisted, you coward.
truda, stop being naty, does you no service, my Dad was a 20 year man in the Air Force, retired at age 40 WWII and Korea Vet, Army AirCorp, Husband 3 tours in Viet Nam, and a LRRP, drafted, you know a throw away kid, Pops worked for another company for nearly 25 years, so get over yourself and watch whom you are calling a douche. Cops, Emts, and Fire Fighters are union people, miserable mutt.
Obama 2012