|
TheCabal -> RE: DEMOCRATIC UPSET - New York Special Election: Medicare Will Be Issue Of 2012 (5/25/2011 5:14:08 PM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: DarkSteven
You don't get it. By all rights, the election should have been a GOP landslide, not even close. If you add votes for the Tea Party candidate and the Republican, it's pretty close.
The GOP has not found any way to deal with criticism of the Ryan bill. Even if it doesn't slice anyone off at the knees if they're above 54, it still slashes Medicare while giving tax breaks to the wealthy. It's so easy to say that it's taking money from Grandma and handing it over to the rich bankers, etc.
I'm absolutely amazed that the GOP didn't draw up a defense for the utterly predictable attacks on this bill by now.
I think he gets it just fine. A couple things need to be understood: in straight demographic terms, the elderly are actually the wealthiest age segment of the population. Which isn't exactly surprising as they've had longer to accumulate wealth than everyone else. The simple reality is what Medicare does now is set up a transfer from the young who are relatively poor, to the elderly, who are relatively rich. This whole 'bankers will get rich, while grandma eats dog food' actually has things almost exactly backwards.
Second, the left can demagogue this all they want, but the folks who are paying attention understand that if nothing is done, Medicare will implode into a financial black hole. Which means, in order to be taken seriously, the left is eventually going to have to come up with an alternative to the Ryan plan, not just insist on the status quo.
|
|
|
|
