So President Obama has submitted a budget with cuts to Social Security and Medicare that are painful, and are beyond what any senior ought to have to put up with, but that don't leave the programs bleeding to death in an alley. So how did the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee respond on CNN today? Like this:
... Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) -- who also happens to be chairman of the House GOP's re-election committee -- [said] Obama's budget "lays out a shocking attack on seniors."That would be the guy whose Facebook wall looks like this:
"I'll tell you when you’re going after seniors the way he's already done on Obamacare, taken $700 billion out of Medicare to put into Obamacare and now coming back at seniors again, I think you're crossing that line very quickly here in terms of denying access to seniors for health care in districts like mine certainly and around the country," he said on CNN Wednesday afternoon.
I know, I know: Obama exposed himself and the rest of his party to this utterly predictable hypocritical attack. I don't think it matters because everyone's going to forget this budget existed relatively soon, largely because Republicans would never, ever take the stick of tax increases to get a carrot of entitlement cuts. So I'm not sure how Republicans are going to use this budget against Democrats if they're attacking it and thus giving Democrats even more cover to attack it. Negotiations are going to break down, a grand bargain won't happen, and cans will continue to be kicked down the road.
But in the meantime, after Walden spoke, we got this from one of our favorite idiot centrists in the media:
Head of NRCC's signal he's comfortable hitting POTUS from left on CPI is reminder that demagoguing Medicare-SocSec is bipartisan addiction
— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) April 10, 2013
Right -- that's the lesson to be learned here: Both sides do it! There's no difference between Bernie Sanders insisting on no cuts to Medicare ands Social Security and this guy saying the same thing -- it's all phony demagoguery! They're all equally insincere and obstructionist! "Washington" is the problem. Also, austerity cures everything!
It's just the same dispiriting stuff that came out in 2010 and kept me from doing any GOTV. What kind of motivational line can I use to get unlikely voters I know to go vote when I can hardly drag myself to the polls?
ReplyDeleteI guess here in Pennsylvania we'll have to rely on the unpopularity of GOP Governor Corbett facing reelection and hope that his aura rubs off on R congressional candidates.
I see this as a positive sign that Congress will be unable to pass any bill cutting Social Security or Medicare.
ReplyDeleteMy man, UPChuck Toad!
ReplyDeleteSteve, what is it do you suppose makes these MSM punTWITS this way?
Are they taught this at PunTWIT U?
Is it something in the water?
Do the networks require a pre-hire lobotomy?
I think you underestimate the harm this does in the long run to the Democrats' core identity in the minds of voters, defenders of such social democracy as was given us by FDR and LBJ.
ReplyDeleteThe difference when you get down thru the bullshit is the Dems are the party of government big enough to help and to protect us all from irresponsible greed and the GOP is the part of that same irresponsible greed.
Blur that and confused voters are easier for the GOP to steal with crap about race, religion, and guns.
And paradoxically the more successful is their yelling about how they think the latest Dem leaders might be Marxists, Nazis, or some other kinds of tyrants.
All at the same time!
I'm sorry I didn't punch Walden harder when we we in high school. The worm doesn't even live in "his district", and on the rare occasion he makes an appearance it's in some cowpile of a town with a population of five. Oregon's own Willard Romney, a trust-funder punk who has nevet done a day's work on its' life, sucklling profusely at the corporation's teat. I'm sorry O didn't hit it* harder.
ReplyDelete*Yes, "it". It isn't human.
No fear.