Grayson sez Ryan is backing off of SocSec and Medicare right now
This makes me happy, but somehow I don't think those assholes are going away or giving up.
Rep. Paul Ryan, Commander-in-Chief of the Benefits Thieves, threw in the towel a week ago. He doesn't see cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits in the near future. Which makes him so, so sad. But that news comes as a relief to the millions upon millions of Americans who paid for those benefits, who earned those benefits, who depend on those benefits, and who deserve to receive them. Let me explain . . . .
This year, 2013, was slated to be a very bad year for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid recipients. The House Republicans had lined up behind the Ryan Budget in 2011 and 2012. The Ryan Budget proposes to eliminate every Medicare guaranteed benefit (replacing them with a check that would fall $6000 short of paying for those benefits each year), and to eliminate every Medicaid guaranteed benefit (replacing them with fifty checks, one to each state, money that likely would never reach the poor and the sick). Paul Ryan also labeled Social Security a "Ponzi scheme."
And if that weren't bad enough, the budget that the White House introduced earlier this year proposed one Social Security benefit cut and three Medicare benefit cuts. The White House's "chained CPI" would reduce cost-of-living adjustments. The White House's Medicare benefit cuts would promote "means-testing" of Medicare recipients, meaning that although virtually every worker in America (including the self-employed) pays into the program, only poor retirees would benefit from it fully.
Well, you and I and a whole lot of other people weren't going to stand for that. I composed the Grayson-Takano letter to the President and House Speaker, promising to vote against any and every benefit cut in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And working together, we got almost 50 Members of Congress to sign that letter.
We also set up a petition against earned benefit cuts at No-Cuts.com. This is what it said:
Sincerely, The American People"
That petition garnered well over two million supporters. It was my pleasure - and, oh, it certainly was a pleasure - to deliver that petition to both the White House and the House Speaker.
And it worked! We turned the tide against benefit cuts. Rep. Paul Ryan conceded that on Fox News a week ago, when he was asked about the prospects for a "Grand Bargain" (more like a "Grand Betrayal"
to cut earned benefits: "I don't think that with this President, or this Senate, we're going to have something like that. That's why I think we need to win a couple of elections."
Win a couple of elections? By insisting on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts? Good luck with that.
So we've won. At least for now. But we have to remain vigilant, always prepared to do it all over again. As anti-slavery leader Wendell Phillips said 160 years ago, the eternal role of active citizens is "unintermitted Agitation."
So thank you, fellow Agitator. You and I make a great team.
Courage,
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the GOP will remain mired in trying to repeal the ACA and once again, discover it's the law of the land.
But Obama has two years left, with the GOP squabbling over the budget and cutting social security and other entitlements. I would not believe anything the Reich Wing would say about abandoning their fight to cut SS and Medicare, they've merely placed the pot on the back burner for now. Give it time, it'll come to a boil soon. I'd trust a coyote before I would anything that came from the GOP.
Walker has already made cuts to my states medicaid program, I'm sure he and the Reich Wing have some big plans.
I only hope we can take back the house and retain our majority in the senate.
I'd also like to see the Wisconsin legislators go back into democrat's hands, these cuts are hurting the poor and middle class here.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-gwen-moore/governor-walker---cutting_b_3866998.html
