President Barack Obama pointed the finger of blame at Republicans yesterday, as incredulous Americans witnessed three fingers pointing right back at him for historically inept leadership on the debt, spending more than the cumulative total since our nation's founding 235 years ago this July 4th.
Still, Republicans must recognize reality.
Everyone knows "” "entitlements" are the federal government's budget-busting cost-drivers.
Even so, the loss of Jack Kemp's old seat in Buffalo, New York, where House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan's (R-WI) Medicare plan loomed large, was a big warning to Republicans: Don't get out front on Medicare.
Donald Trump went so far as to call it a "death wish" "” a sentiment MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell recently echoed on The Last Word, gleefully intoning: "It has the power to destroy Republican candidates."
O'Donnell and "The Donald" are both right.
Oh, it's charming that Ryan is so intent on setting Medicare on a stable fiscal trajectory "” like by-the-book French police officer Nestor Patou, played by Jack Lemmon in Irma la Douce (1963), who tries to eliminate prostitution in Paris' red light district.
The pols who prey on seniors, telling them Medicare as they know it will end, while pocketing big liberal and corrupting PAC money, should be the ones suffering. Instead, like Patou, Ryan gets the ax "” by proxy in NY-26, his boss' old district.
But there's a subtler means to moral ends.
In Irma la Douce, when Patou, now jobless, goes to a bar to drink away his sorrows, he is befriended by Irma, played by Shirley MacLaine, and beats up and replaces her pimp, whereupon he dresses up as "Lord X," pretending he wants her services, but only pays her to talk and play cards.
So what's Republicans' Lord X path to redemption?
The subtler, more effective, immediate approach to fiscal sanity vis-à-vis entitlements is to coax the Obama administration into playing its proper role in working to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, to save billions and extend Medicare's solvency well past its 2024 projected bankruptcy.
Seniors are no dummies. They know when they get a back brace that's a piece of junk that Medicare bills $951 for (Home Depot sells a quality brace for about $25), telling concerned senior, "Don't worry, it's not your money!," as a loved one recently experienced, the system is broken and corrupt.
Ferreting out fraud, waste, and abuse, is, of course, but a down-payment on longer-term sustainability "” the reality of which will tee up a new opportunity to re-conceptualize how to give beneficiaries a greater ownership stake, which is the best way to keep down costs.
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Reagan got burned by the Democrats, who reneged on their end of budget deals.
…but I want a Hover-Around. and a Primier Bath.
the republicans should just keep asking for the democratic version of a budget.
they are getting suckered. and tell the idiot Bohner not to play golf with the fraudulent president it looks unseemly.
AND NOT RAISE THE DEBT LIMIT
The best reform to Medicaid would be for at least a token co-payment at least $1.00 for every service and more based on ability to pay. This would cut down on SOME unnecessary visits and give everyone the pride in at least some contribution to their own well being. If someone doesn’t like it…. Tough! There should also be no coverage for drug users.
Sorry, but I believe the method of ferreting out fraud and waste in Medicare is consistently tried and is consistently found wanting and maintaining control while giving away the farm is not control. Time has long since past for Medicare to be completely reformed and to continue with the method of giving in to the demogogues who will consistently renege on any “promises” is not the method to use anymore. Learn the lessons of Reagan and Bush(I), don’t trust the Dem’s to follow their part of the bargain.
The reality is that old people, in fact, ALL adults, need to pay for their own care (in what ever way they choose to do so), rely on their children to pay, get a charitable organizational to pay for it, or go without. What on earth is so hard about this? Your health, your life, your responsibility, not mine.
You’re talking pre-1965. This is 2011. Get with the times. But, yes there is a better way than the current system. Albeit, we won’t change it in 30 days.
i don’t understand why the debt limit has to be lifted enough for one more year of spending. The Republicans in the House of Representatives should instead pass a bill lifting the debt limit enough for just another 2 weeks of borrowing and connect that bill to something small that the D’s and Obama will hate — say, repeal of the light-bulb ban. Then, after another 2 weeks have passed, offer a very little more debt extension in return for another thing they will hate — say a repeal of the individual mandate in Obamacare. Pretty soon Obama will get the message: Either start figuring out ways to save money, or sacrifice ideological goodies one by one for very short term extensions of the debt limit. Note that these ideological goodies should have nothing directly to do with saving money and everything to do with causing political pain for Obama and left-wing Democrats. This will act as political blackmail to force Obama and the Democrats to come up with ways to save money so that they do not have to keep going back to the Republicans in the house for another two-week extension.
Republicans aren’t that smart.
They don’t call us the “Stupid Party” for nothing!!!
Hey I wish Harry Reid was Senator from NM instead of where I live here in NV. Get it right or I might have to wonder if you know what your talking about.
It’s true that you have to win elections in order to set and change policy, but you don’t have to sell your soul in order to do so. The other quality Reagan brought to his Presidency that this column didn’t mention was his prime ability to COMMUNICATE, and convince Americans he had THEIR best interests at heart; not his own, or the Republicans’ …
We need a real communicator to get through the Democrat demagoguery that deceives voters into making the mistake of voting for programs and politicians that will stab them, and the country, in the back every time. AndI’m all for finding ways to compromise and go for smaller bread loaves, but when you’re dealing with people who refuse to compromise themselves – well sometimes, you have to get down and dirty. So, you need a communicator who’s also a fighter – someone who will get in the ring when the fight’s on, and not just be a sideline commentator.
Sounds like Palin, Bachmann, or Cain to me. Everyone else is just too much of a political insider, too far into the belly of the beast, too afraid of telling voters hard truths to be the kind of Republican President this country needs right now. I’d also add Chris Christie to that group, and I really understand why Ann Coulter wants and prays for him to run so much. He’s the ONE candidate, the one guy who the Democrats DON’T wanna get in the ring with. They’ll fight Palin, they’ll demagogue Bachmann – but they won’t step in the ring with Christie. If New Jersey Dems – who may be the only regional Democrats in the country who are better at political games than their cousins the “Crook” County Illinois Dems – can’t stop this guy, NO one can.
2012 is the watershed election of the age in this country; either we’ll get a leader who will pull us away from the brink, or we’ll get four more years of Marxist statism that will pretty much stick a fork in America.
Whatever you do, VOTE IN 2012!!!!
“but you don't have to sell your soul in order to do so.”
It is a wonderful sentiment and I agree to a point. Albeit we are where we are at because every election cycle the Democrats sell their soul shamelessly and have finally brought us to the cliff with their lies and deceit. Somehow we have got to get better at playing in the same ball park as these assh..es and get out of bleachers. We have got to be more ruthless, if that means name calling hey give it a try.
I am not suggesting we lie, but we better get our message down, like Reagan. We have to avoid the the traps that will be set for us (No new taxes…oooppss). We must hound the left and expose them for who they are.
We have to get elected and then do what we have to do to save this country. If we don’t and this Marxist President and his co-hort get back in office and we do not take full control of this government we are doomed.
Nice quit working a long time ago. A water pistol in a gun fight with these cowards isn’t very effective. You end up dead and they end up wet.
Thanks,
Most drug users on medicaid have given up on street drugs and switched to Oxycontin, Methadone and cut it with Xanax. Good friend of mine is a Nurse case manager and 75% of her cases are on strong narcotic’s. Worse yet the price tag on oxy is 600 – 1800 a month. At least the methadone is cheap.
Altruism is in very short supply when it comes to politicians and their constituents. Those turning 65 now are not the “Greatest Generation” but rather their spoiled children. As the add says for a certain company promising to give you your annuity or other long term payment now, “I want my money and I want it now!” Unfortunately, in both cases that means that money will not be available for their children. Congresspeople have huge egos, for the most part, and crave the money, power, and prestige than comes, supposedly, with the post. Most are quite willing to let scruples fall by the wayside if doing so will keep them in power and out of prison.
This is bogus. When Reagan and O’Neill made their deal, SS was broke, out of money. In the end, they simply raised the entitlement taxes. Yeah, there were side deals, but that’s it in a nutshell. Nothing will get done until these programs hit the bottom.
In fact, that’s what the Repubs ought to do… nothing. Tell the country that they will do nothing to initiate a fix to the mess of SS and Medicare. They need to say that they are not gonna be the fall guy for this. If doing the right thing gets punished, then forget it.
The Right has better things to do than to save Democratic constituencies, so that Dems can get themselves elected. You guys vote Democratic. Tell the damned Dems to fix it. Not our constituents, so it’s not our problem.
The only thing the Repubs ought to do is separate SS from the general budget again, so when it runs out of money, the Federal budget does not have to pay for it out of general revenue.
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