Debbie, you keep posting that on various threads and I seriously don't know what you're talking about. I googled it and got this ... basically stating that Romney praised their health care system while there.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/daily-reports/2012/august/01/wed-opinions.aspx

I selected a site that really has no political opinion. That being said, what on earth does that have to do with the posted article?????

Puleeze, the Democrats have ALWAYS protected trust fund entitlements. Anyone who believes Republicans have suddenly become the champions of programs like Medicare has to be ignorant and very gullible.

The savings in Medicare under the Dems and the president was from reducing subsidies to providers (pharmaceutical companies, etc.) -- not from benefits for seniors -- And in fact those savings are being returned to seniors by closing the donut hole.

Paul Ryan (and now Romney) keep that same amount of savings in their plan, but the BIG difference is they do not return that money to seniors, and certainly not to ACA, which they want to repeal. They really do steal money from Medicare so they can give more tax cuts to the rich.

The Teapublicans down the line are already getting their mothers who are on Medicare to be in ads saying their sons would never hurt them and other seniors. Riiiight, 98% Republicans voted for Paul Ryan's budget and to end Medicare as we know it.

Come on voters, you know Republicans have been trying to destroy the New Deal from day one. Anyone or any senior who is willing to take a chance of voting for the Robber Barons and giving them a congress to rubber stamp their radical agenda is insane. Romney and Ryan can't be trusted.

Vouchers are how they will END Medicare for everyone, because this is what will not be sustainable. Then they will use the excuse that it is not working as the way to end Medicare for everyone, including seniors already on Medicare. Don't take the chance--they won't stop at age 55.

Save Social Security and Medicare -- Obama/Biden - 2012!

Stupid conversation. A Single Payer System puts all of this crap to bed. Pay less and live longer, America is behind on all these counts.

It is getting harder and harder for the liberal media to cover up Obama's failures. Common sense won out in 2010 and it will again in 2012. Romney/Ryan 2012!

layton - Debbie is right on target and correct, it has everything to do with medicare, medicaid, and any other healthcare plan. They think it is ok for the folks in MA and Israel to have universal health care coverage but the rest of us are not good enough is all I can get out of their stance on this issue. Kind of like georgie being so happy that the folks in Iraq had great healthcare, but us - no, we are evidently not worth that to them, after all we are just the working backbone of this nation, the people they made their billions off of by working us to death.

UAW Pleeeeeeeease

It is getting harder and harder for the liberal media to cover up Obama's failures.

Sheesh, I thought we were ignoring them. Choose a verb and stick with it will ya? 50 years of staying on message and 2010 sends you all into a daydream of we the teapeople.

True Patriot-445959,

Let's get soemthing straight. Entitlement doesn't mean Medicare is something being provided to seniors for free. It means this Medicare coverage is a service seniors are entitled to because it was purchased by them throughout their working careers, as they paid into FICA contributions towards medicare from their paychecks. Seniors didn't pay into FICA contributions for a giveaway to Insurance Companies establishing themselves payees/decision makers of Seniors medical coverage. This service is paid for by those working Americans for the Government to be designated payee of seniors health care....end of subject. Wall Street will never become the designated payee of Seniors health care for coverage......

So....stop utilizing the word "entitlement" like Republicans do by insinuating it as something seniors get for free. They purchase it over the years.................case closed..

I just couldn't get the connection Union Baby, thanks. I think my confusion is the whole Republicans repeatedly calling it wrong when Mitt endorsed it while in Israel. So it's just more of the pots and kettle stuff that the GOP is so fond of. Thanks! ;-)

Israel's health care system is a single payer socialized health care system. And Romney praised it........hello????

Layton, Romney and Republicans have said they will repeal ObamaCare and that they are opposed to a mandate. That is exactly what Israel has, a mandate for healthcare insurance.

If Republicans are so supportive of it, why have House Republicans voted 37 times to repeal the individual mandate that is similar to Israel's.

Romney has run as fast as he can from RomneyCare.

Romney may be the first Presidential candidate in history who doesn't stand behind his record, but runs from it.
Romney says Bain is out of bounds and shouldn't be talked about.
Romney seals the Olympics record and doesn't want to talk about how he bragged about using lobbyists to milk taxpayers out of more money for the Utah Olympics than all the previous US Olympics combined. He even used that taxpayer money to give replica Olympic torches to the Congressional Republicans who gave the Olympics taxpayer money.
Romney destroyed computer data as he was leaving the Governor's office. He agreed to a 3 year lease for computers using taxpayer money, but when he realized he was leaving, taxpayers paid the fine so he could replace the computers before leaving the Governor seat.

Romney even runs from the fact that his tax plan doesn't add up.

In Romney's eyes, we're supposed to trust everything he says. When we try to verify, it doesn't add up. When we ask for more information, Romney says Americans are not worthy.

Tony, You would think that since seniors "paid" for medicare it would really be "paid" for wouldnt you?? I think the reason it gets referred to as an entitlement program is because it wasn't fully paid for. It costs far more than the recipients ever paid in. Let's really reform it with a better President in 2012. ROMNEY/RYAN 2012!

UAW pleeeease,

Bush/Ryan legislated the expansion of Medicare with a defunded donut hole designed for prescription drug coverage of Seniors from their very FICA contributions in 2003, and never legislated the final details for Phramaceutical coverage payments to health Care Providers. So seniors paid for it, and the 2003 legislation never finalized it's implementaion.

It's compares to giving your daughter a debit card for College, as a High School graduation present, and closing the debit card account at the bank the day before her graduation ceremony.

Real slick, huh??? Republicans have used these tricks in the past. Of course it's to offset costs of unfunded Coporate tax cuts. Never the less, it's laughable how people like yourselves (GOP) play stupid, as though their clueless. When instead, you people know the score and understand the game your Party is playing.....

Obama/Biden 2012

Tonytellsthetruth -- We are on the same page:

It only took two hours after the Paul Ryan vice presidential announcement for Republican congressional candidates to get their talking points on how to spin the Ryan budget and Medicare attacks.

“Do not say: ‘entitlement reform,’ ‘privatization,’ ‘every option is on the table,’” the National Republican Congressional Committee said in an email memo. “Do say: ‘strengthen,’ ‘secure,’ ‘save,’ ‘preserve, ‘protect.’”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79673.html#ixzz23eNbq5Pe

I usually say trust fund programs, but regardless...

Just like pension plans and other retirement plans like 401ks, trust fund entitlements are what workers and employers pay into via FICA/payroll withholdings. These funds were supposed to be safely invested like pension plans, but instead Congress has constantly pilfered programs like Social Security to fund deficit spending.

Aside from the problem of the IOU and that workers who have paid into these programs are therefore "entitled" to these benefits, Medicare is NOT free. It is a fee-for-service program in which seniors must pay premiums and co-pays just like one does for private insurance. If you are living on a limited Social Security income, these premiums and other out-of-pocket costs can still be difficult to pay. But it is better than an 80 year old trying to buy insurance in the private sector.

What Paul Ryan and his ilk have wanted to do for decades is end these programs and go back to the days when the elderly lived in extreme poverty and had to choose between cat food to eat or keeping the heat on. Paul Ryan's plan is only bold in the sense of how despicable it is. The concept of issuing coupons of a limited amount, and block grants to states of limited amounts is going back to the days when old people were left to die.

Ryan and other voodoo economic plutocrats know that a voucher system won't work -- which is precisely the goal. Just as he and other Republicans rubber stamped spending and tax cuts that were not paid for during Dubya to create a create a crisis as their excuse to cut programs they don't like.

Those who refer to Paul Ryan as a "deficit hawk" are great big liars. Plutocrats like Romney and Ryan could care less about the debt. They just want to pay zero taxes and they want to reward their 1% crony capitalists whether Wall Street, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, or the health insurance industry.

So NO to the 21st Century Robber Barons. Romney/Ryan -- they aren't in it for you.

Tony, be careful, you used the expression "You people". The left has decided that is not proper. Sorry they forgot to get that memo to you.

JC in G,

I appreciate the advice........Lol.

It (Health Care) will be their (GOP) Waterloo..........

“Their plan ends Medicare as we know it. My plan reduces the cost of Medicare by cracking down on fraud and waste and subsidies to insurance companies. Their plan makes seniors pay more so they can give another tax cut to millionaires and billionaires.”

Now why do you suppose Romney wouldn't just come out and admit that he and Ryan DO want to turn Medicare into a voucher program so that they can totally dispose of the program and keep all of our money that we've been forced to pay into all our working lives.

Just say it Republicans! You literally want our money that we have paid into Medicare, and then you want to use Romney to confiscate our Social Security Retirement money, just like he did with all those retirement accounts that belonged to employees of the companies Mitt bought out!

Obama/Biden 2012

TO: UAW Pleeeeeeeease who wrote:

"Tony, You would think that since seniors "paid" for medicare it would really be "paid" for wouldnt you?? I think the reason it gets referred to as an entitlement program is because it wasn't fully paid for. It costs far more than the recipients ever paid in. Let's really reform it ..."

Keep your creepy hands off our money!

We've paid into Social Security and Medicare all our working lives!

Now if Republicans were serious about getting rid of those 2 programs, why wouldn't they talk about giving us all our money back, with interest paid thereon at the legal rate.

Because Republicans want it all, our money, AND our benefits. Just like robbing a bank.

People who have no money in Social Security and haven't paid a dime into Medicare have no business trying to make decisions about something they have no real interest in!

Of course the crooks are going to say "steal it" because they themselves have nothing to lose!

Obama/Biden 2012

American Girl-724855

...and then you want to use Romney to confiscate our Social Security Retirement money, just like he did with all those retirement accounts that belonged to employees of the companies Mitt bought out!

Exactly, and why divide and conquer douchebags like Scott Walker will be speakers at the RNC convention. This is their platform, to privatize profit and socialize debt, to take from the poor to give to the rich, to destroy labor rights and turn our system into an oligarchy.

Throw the treasonous Teapublicans out!

TruePatriot-445959, my hero!

Hey Girl,

I wish we could get our money back from SS now. Heck I'd even settle for them to just stop taking money from here forward and they can keep what's been thrown away so far. I can get a better return on my money on my own. I don't need the government to take my money and "gaurentee" me a social security check that is many times below the poverty level....

Hey girl, I think you are really cute, but if you keep asking me to pay my fair share I won't invite you to the Bahamas. XO Paul Ryan.

UAW,

SS is just one part of retirement. Along with any penison and your savings.

It is sad for many working poor, the only income in their retirement years is SS.

It is elderly women who many times did not work outside the home , or had low income jobs that now live at or below the poverty level with only SS.

Romneys plan is almost identical to everything Reagan did as president. Cut taxes on the rich while raising them on the middle class. Massive cuts to social programs and a massive military buildup. He doesn't claim to want to triple the deficit like Reagan but if he follows his plan that will occur.

The problem with Romneys plan is that we aren't afraid of a Soviet Union and increasing our military which is already the worlds largest won't make him any points as it did Reagan. Reagan was liked despite what he did to the poor and middle class. Romney can't pull it off.

. Reagan was a serial tax raiser. As governor of California, Reagan “signed into law the largest tax increase in the history of any state up till then.” Meanwhile, state spending nearly doubled. As president, Reagan “raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office,” including four times in just two years. As former GOP Senator Alan Simpson, who called Reagan “a dear friend,” told NPR, “Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times in his administration — I was there.” “Reagan was never afraid to raise taxes,” said historian Douglas Brinkley, who edited Reagan’s memoir. Reagan the anti-tax zealot is “false mythology,” Brinkley said.

2. Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit. During the Reagan years, the debt increased to nearly $3 trillion, “roughly three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether.” Reagan enacted a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously. Despite the conservative myth that tax cuts somehow increase revenue, the government went deeper into debt and Reagan had to raise taxes just a year after he enacted his tax cut. Despite ten more tax hikes on everything from gasoline to corporate income, Reagan was never able to get the deficit under control.

3. Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. Unemployment jumped to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level. Meanwhile, income inequality exploded. Despite the myth that Reagan presided over an era of unmatched economic boom for all Americans, Reagan disproportionately taxed the poor and middle class, but the economic growth of the 1980′s did little help them. “Since 1980, median household income has risen only 30 percent, adjusted for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled,” the New York Times’ David Leonhardt noted.

4. Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously. Reagan promised “to move boldly, decisively, and quickly to control the runaway growth of federal spending,” but federal spending “ballooned” under Reagan. He bailed out Social Security in 1983 after attempting to privatize it, and set up a progressive taxation system to keep it funded into the future. He promised to cut government agencies like the Department of Energy and Education but ended up adding one of the largest — the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, which today has a budget of nearly $90 billion and close to 300,000 employees. He also hiked defense spending by over $100 billion a year to a level not seen since the height of the Vietnam war.

5. Reagan did little to fight a woman’s right to choose. As governor of California in 1967, Reagan signed a bill to liberalize the state’s abortion laws that “resulted in more than a million abortions.” When Reagan ran for president, he advocated a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited all abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother, but once in office, he “never seriously pursued” curbing choice.

6. Reagan was a “bellicose peacenik.” He wrote in his memoirs that “[m]y dream…became a world free of nuclear weapons.” “This vision stemmed from the president’s belief that the biblical account of Armageddon prophesied nuclear war — and that apocalypse could be averted if everyone, especially the Soviets, eliminated nuclear weapons,” the Washington Monthly noted. And Reagan’s military buildup was meant to crush the Soviet Union, but “also to put the United States in a stronger position from which to establish effective arms control” for the the entire world — a vision acted out by Regean’s vice president, George H.W. Bush, when he became president.

7. Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants. Reagan signed into law a bill that made any immigrant who had entered the country before 1982 eligible for amnesty. The bill was sold as a crackdown, but its tough sanctions on employers who hired undocumented immigrants were removed before final passage. The bill helped 3 million people and millions more family members gain American residency. It has since become a source of major embarrassment for conservatives.

Romneys plan is almost identical to everything Reagan did as president. Cut taxes on the rich while raising them on the middle class. Massive cuts to social programs and a massive military buildup. He doesn't claim to want to triple the deficit like Reagan but if he follows his plan that will occur.

The problem with Romneys plan is that we aren't afraid of a Soviet Union and increasing our military which is already the worlds largest won't make him any points as it did Reagan. Reagan was liked despite what he did to the poor and middle class. Romney can't pull it off.

. Reagan was a serial tax raiser. As governor of California, Reagan “signed into law the largest tax increase in the history of any state up till then.” Meanwhile, state spending nearly doubled. As president, Reagan “raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office,” including four times in just two years. As former GOP Senator Alan Simpson, who called Reagan “a dear friend,” told NPR, “Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times in his administration — I was there.” “Reagan was never afraid to raise taxes,” said historian Douglas Brinkley, who edited Reagan’s memoir. Reagan the anti-tax zealot is “false mythology,” Brinkley said.

2. Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit. During the Reagan years, the debt increased to nearly $3 trillion, “roughly three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether.” Reagan enacted a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously. Despite the conservative myth that tax cuts somehow increase revenue, the government went deeper into debt and Reagan had to raise taxes just a year after he enacted his tax cut. Despite ten more tax hikes on everything from gasoline to corporate income, Reagan was never able to get the deficit under control.

3. Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. Unemployment jumped to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level. Meanwhile, income inequality exploded. Despite the myth that Reagan presided over an era of unmatched economic boom for all Americans, Reagan disproportionately taxed the poor and middle class, but the economic growth of the 1980′s did little help them. “Since 1980, median household income has risen only 30 percent, adjusted for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled,” the New York Times’ David Leonhardt noted.

4. Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously. Reagan promised “to move boldly, decisively, and quickly to control the runaway growth of federal spending,” but federal spending “ballooned” under Reagan. He bailed out Social Security in 1983 after attempting to privatize it, and set up a progressive taxation system to keep it funded into the future. He promised to cut government agencies like the Department of Energy and Education but ended up adding one of the largest — the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, which today has a budget of nearly $90 billion and close to 300,000 employees. He also hiked defense spending by over $100 billion a year to a level not seen since the height of the Vietnam war.

5. Reagan did little to fight a woman’s right to choose. As governor of California in 1967, Reagan signed a bill to liberalize the state’s abortion laws that “resulted in more than a million abortions.” When Reagan ran for president, he advocated a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited all abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother, but once in office, he “never seriously pursued” curbing choice.

6. Reagan was a “bellicose peacenik.” He wrote in his memoirs that “[m]y dream…became a world free of nuclear weapons.” “This vision stemmed from the president’s belief that the biblical account of Armageddon prophesied nuclear war — and that apocalypse could be averted if everyone, especially the Soviets, eliminated nuclear weapons,” the Washington Monthly noted. And Reagan’s military buildup was meant to crush the Soviet Union, but “also to put the United States in a stronger position from which to establish effective arms control” for the the entire world — a vision acted out by Regean’s vice president, George H.W. Bush, when he became president.

7. Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants. Reagan signed into law a bill that made any immigrant who had entered the country before 1982 eligible for amnesty. The bill was sold as a crackdown, but its tough sanctions on employers who hired undocumented immigrants were removed before final passage. The bill helped 3 million people and millions more family members gain American residency. It has since become a source of major embarrassment for conservatives.

Its the same game the Libbies always play. We won’t pay doctors or hospitals what their services really cost and then proclaim they are “saving “ money. Its kinda like going to the grocery store and telling the sales clerk your only gonna pay 70 cents for the apple that actually costs a dollar. The grocery store has to recover its costs as well as make a profit in order to pay the sales clerk or it will go out of business. Thats why the apple costs a dollar. Hospitals and doctors are no different. The government has been stiffing doctors and hospitals for years. That's why seniors are having an increasingly difficult time finding doctors who will treat them and will suffer accordingly. Only in the delusional world of Obama liberals can this be viewed as saving. Medicare is $35 Trillion in debt. Obama has proposed nothing to address the causes or provide solutions. Thank God Romney and Ryan are.

When it comes to vouchers for parents to use to send their child to whatever school they want, the politicians are praised for it.

When it comes to vouchers to get health care wherever you want, THATS SOMEHOW BAD!!!! Especially since a REpublican wants to do that

Obama Stole 700 billion from medicare. HE FLAT OUT ADMITTED IT IN 2010 HE WAS TAKING THE MONEY FROM MEDICARE FOR HIS OBAMADOESNOTCARE

Sorry libs you can't argue Obamas exact words.

John Haddock -- Wow. NO, vouchers for school are very bad -- It is a ruse to get tax dollars to pay for prayer in school and to teach creationism. You are not only spreading lies but also ignorance.

The savings in Medicare under the Dems and the president was from reducing subsidies to providers (pharmaceutical companies, etc.) -- not from benefits for seniors -- And in fact those savings are being returned to seniors by closing the donut hole.

If Obamacare said that any savings from reducing the costs of Medicare would be transferred to Obamacare in an effort to make it cost neutral, that may have been acceptable. However, Obamacare takes $700 BILLION plus from Medicare effective January 1, 2013 and transfers that $700 BILLION to Obamacare regardless of whether corresponding $700 billion savings occur in Medicare or not. Obama has cut Medicare benefits for seniors currently. There is no doubt about that. As Pelosi said, "we have to pass the bill to find out what's in it." Well, it passed and now we're finding out what's in it and Obama is panicking that seniors and near-seniors are furious about what they are finding.

If you are a senior or near-senior you have to be nuts or have a death wish to vote for Obama. This $700 BILLION cut to Medicare adversely affects the medical care seniors have paid for all their lives and expect to continue receiving. And that government commission that is provided for in Obamacare, that commission will decide what medical procedures will be paid for by Medicare. It's very probable the costly procedures that extend seniors lives will be deemed too expensive and will not be paid for by Medicare. What was that about "death panels"? Looks like Obama is bringing that chicken home to roost, and it's going to roost on seniors doorsteps.

Obamacare emphasizes government control and central planning. The law empowers a panel of 15 unelected government officials, called the Independent Payment Advisory Board, to make changes to the Medicare program that will reduce Medicare spending: primarily paying doctors and hospitals less, as is done with the Medicaid program. Over time, liberal health-policy types hope that IPAB can be used to introduce rationing into Medicare, using the panel to determine what types of procedures and treatments that Medicare will and will not pay for.

No doubt, Obama is working hard to continue the safety net for seniors. After all he claims that now Medicare which was going broke in 8 years when he took office, is saved because his policies have extended the life to 12 years. Wow, a whole four more years! That is the same as whoops, four more years, well okay lets take credit for it. This fact is a simple one, Obama will say anything to try and convince everyone that he has actually done something. It is only guaranteed to work on liberals.

Dem4Freedom,

The auto bailout came from TARP and the bottom line is that TARP has made a profit for taxpayers – not even counting all the GM stock shares they own.

If the auto bailouts cost us $25 billion and saved ~5 million jobs, what is the difference in unemployment benefits? I believe you'd cut off your nose to spite your face!

This was the first that I had heard that it cost us $25 billion. Wish the government would bail me out!!

Dem4Freedom,

How about spending 40,000 times that on Iraq?

Dennis - clearly Dem4 couldn't comprehend your post that we ended up making a profit on TARP.

Ursula -or yours that over 5 million jobs were saved.

Obama/Biden 2012

Even if the government "lost money" on the auto bailout, I'd say it was still money well spent.

I just read Maureen Dowd's column on Paul Ryan. Man, does she nail him:

I’d been wondering how long it would take Republicans to realize that Paul Ryan is their guy.

He’s the cutest package that cruelty ever came in. He has a winning air of sad cheerfulness. He’s affable, clean cut and really cut, with the Irish altar-boy widow’s peak and droopy, winsome blue eyes and unashamed sentimentality.

Who better to rain misery upon the heads of millions of Americans?

He’s Scrooge disguised as a Pickwick, an ideologue disguised as a wonk. Not since Ronald Reagan tried to cut the budget by categorizing ketchup and relish as vegetables has the G.O.P. managed to find such an attractive vessel to mask harsh policies with a smiling face.

The Young Gun and former prom king is a fan of deer hunting, catfish noodling, heavy metal and Beethoven. He’s a great dad who says the cheese, bratwurst and beer of Wisconsin flow in his veins. He’s so easy to like — except that his politics are just a teensy bit heartless.

Rush Limbaugh hails Ryan as “the last Boy Scout,” noting that the tall, slender 42-year-old is a true believer: “We now have somebody on the ticket who’s us.”

For the rest of us, at least, Ryan is not going to raise our hopes only to dash them. Unlike W., he’s not even going to make a feint at “compassionate conservatism.” Why bother with some silly scruple or toehold of conscience?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/opinion/dowd-when-cruelty-is-cute.html?_r=1&hp

This is just too good not to quote in it's entirety:

Unlike some of the right-wing ayatollahs, Ryan doesn’t threaten with moral and cultural gusts of sulfur. He seems more like a friendly guidance counselor who wants to teach us how to live, get us in shape, PowerPoint away the social safety net to make the less advantaged more self-reliant, as he makes the rich richer. Burning the village it takes to save it, so we can avoid the fiscal cliff, or as he and his fellow conservative Cassandras ominously call it, “the debt bomb.”

Like Mitt Romney, Ryan truly believes he made it on his own, so everyone else can, too. He shrugs off the advantage of starting as the white guy from an affluent family, able to breeze into a summer internship for a Wisconsin Republican senator as a college student.

Only 16 and the youngest of four when he discovered his lawyer dad dead in bed from a heart attack at 55, Ryan had to grow up fast.

The Midwestern kid was guided by what David Stockman calls “Irving Kristol’s ex-Trotskyites” turned neo-cons; Jack Kemp, the cheery supply-sider who actually cared about the disadvantaged, and by one of Kemp’s favorite authors, Russian émigré and cult leader Ayn (pronounced like swine, as she used to say) Rand.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/opinion/dowd-when-cruelty-is-cute.html?_r=1&hp

and Maureen continues:

“And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism,” Ryan said in a 2005 speech to the Atlas Society. He even gave copies of “Atlas Shrugged” to staffers at Christmas. He did not emulate Rand on everything, given that she adamantly opposed Ronald Reagan, saying, “Since he denies the right to abortion, he cannot be a defender of any rights.”

Ryan co-sponsored the Sanctity of Life Act enshrining a fertilized egg with the definition of “personhood” and supported a bill Democrats nicknamed the “Let Women Die Act,” which would have let hospitals that get federal money deny women abortions even in life-threatening circumstances.

And Rand would not have approved of Ryan’s votes in the House backing W.’s profligate spending on unwinnable wars, a bank bailout and a Medicare expansion. She would no doubt have been thrilled, however, that under the Ryan budget plan, the megarich Romney would go from paying shamefully as little as possible in taxes to virtually no taxes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/opinion/dowd-when-cruelty-is-cute.html?_r=1&hp

Maureen Dowd is brilliant:

Ryan was drawn to Rand’s novels, with their rejection of “the altruist morality,” making narcissism a social virtue; her exhortation that man must not only strive for “physical values” — her heroes were hot — and self-made wealth, but a “self-made soul.” Like John Galt, who traces a dollar sign “over the desolate earth” at the end of “Atlas Shrugged,” Rand idolized the dollar. She wore a brooch shaped like a dollar sign, and a 6-foot dollar sign stood beside her coffin at her wake.

Although the Catholic Ryan told Fox News’s Brit Hume in an interview that aired Tuesday night that he “completely disagreed” with Rand’s “atheistic philosophy,” he said his interest in economics was “triggered” by her.

His long infatuation with her makes him seem even younger than he looks with his cowlick because Randism is a state of arrested adolescence, making its disciples feel like heroic teenagers atop a lofty mountain peak.

The secretive, ambiguous Romney was desperate for ideological clarity, so he outsourced his political identity to Ryan, a numbers guy whose numbers don’t add up.

This just proves that Romney will never get over his anxiety about not being conservative enough. As president, he’d still feel the need to prove himself with right-wing Supreme Court picks.

Ryan should stop being so lovable. People who intend to hurt other people should wipe the smile off their faces.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/opinion/dowd-when-cruelty-is-cute.html?_r=1&hp

Dennis - 40,000 times 25 billion blew my calculator up! Wars are a terrible thing... How many jobs we could have created with all that war money...

Dem4Freedom

Dennis - 40,000 times 25 billion blew my calculator up! Wars are a terrible thing... How many jobs we could have created with all that war money..

This is the Eisenhower Military Industrial Complex problem that has evolved over time. Can the workers in that industry afford to lose their jobs and can the economy? Even Dems in the ridings with these industries vote up increased spending.

So far 25bil. You seem to forget the reason that amount just went up. The government still owns stock, which has every possibity of increasing in value as the economy recovers. It's going too slow but it IS recovering from the worst downturn since the great depression.

Also if you lived in Michigan or other auto manufacturing state you would have an idea of

just how much value has been added to our economy by the jobs that were saved by the bailout.

Michigan at least would still be in a depression if not for that bailout.

Amy just post the link. No need to post the verbiage and the link.

ksw62118 -- Quoting to make one's case as well as the link is preferred.

True it just clogs up the page with novels. Just pull out highlights. We all know how to use links and read for ourselves.

ksw62118 -- There is a balance, I agree with you. Folks aren't supposed to quote the entire source. I try to pick the section that makes the point best. But I like both, the reason being is rightwingers often paraphrase with their own twisted interpretation -- If they quote verbatim, it is more difficult to distort a source. And a lot of readers don't have time to go to the link.

ECONOMICS… Obama has increased our debt by more than any president in U.S. history!

In fact, in less than 3 ½ years he has increased the debt at double the rate Bush increased debt over his entire 8 year term. Obama is absolutely out of control and has totally refused to follow the recommendations of his own democratic deficit-reduction commission! Think about that for a minute.

As a result of his socialist agenda and reckless fiscal policy, Obama ratcheted up America’s Debt to GDP ratio at an unthinkable rate placing America in a very similar position to that of of Portugal, Ireland and Italy.

Anyone with even a scintilla of intellectual acumen need only glimpse at the impact "Obama style socialism" has had in Europe to bear witness to America's future under Obama. On the verge of defaulting on government debts, people are living under crushing austerity measures. Countless jobs have been wiped out; the official unemployment rate is 15-21%. Salaries have been cut to the bone. Pensions and health benefits have been slashed. Tourism industry is a shambles. Tens of thousands of workers have taken to the streets to protest a problem they thought they'd never see in their lifetime! In picturesque plazas, beggars outnumber tourists and protesters outnumber beggars. In front of Parliament, riot police stand watch to protect big spending socialist lawmakers from angry mobs.

It is this kind of chaos that lies in wait should Obama be reelected! Even if clear thinking Americans unseat him, the damage he has done will require an austerity pill and a good dose of Cod liver oil to ease the pain! God help America! Obama has built his house on sinking sand and when the winds of the "most reckless fiscal policy in American history" blow, he and his godless house will surely fall!

No American with even the most basic understaning of economics should even consider supporting him!!!!

NEW LEADERSHIP IN THE WASHINGTON, DC… Obama developed strategic relationships with the most godless and morally debased segments of our society thinly veiled effort to secure votes from those and others the “Obama administration characterizes” as one dimensional, intellectually compromised, single issue constituencies.

In response the Coalition of African-American Pastors, a group of leading black clergy, has responded to Obama’s morally compromised strategy by extolling blacks to withdraw and reevaluate their support of Obama.

Essentially, they and an every growing segment of principled members of the democratic party believe they must abandon Obama's candidacy and return to fight another day when the Democratic party can submit a candidate who is more willing to uphold traditional American values rather than to functional as an architect of policies that will ultimately destroy the country from within.

Just when I personally thought Obama could not become any more morally corrupt, I recently learned he has made yet another Faustian deal with the devil!! In this case, he has appointed the "King Of Gay Pornography" to his campaign finance committee, patted him on the back and told him to keep up the good work.

By any standard of measure, such morally vapid desperation proves
he is unfit to serve in this hallowed office!!!

My son has a Masters Degree in Economics...he's definitely supporting President Obama. He says the "other guys plan is nuts and puts the screws to guys like me".

Obama's reckless deficit spending has screwed you, your children and grandchildren!

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) releases a report every year on the “health” of the largest benefit programs in U.S.

In 2012, the CBO analyzed the impact of Obama’s massive deficit spending on Medicare and concluded that the program would run out of money by no later than 2024 as a result! The report warns that Obama’s reckless spending and worsening the budget deficit is likely to move up the doomsday time line!

In 2012— the CBO report now says money for Social Security will run dry by 2035 – three years earlier due to Obama’s runaway budget deficit!

What could disrupt this projection completely is the budget deficit for the “disability program” within Social Security. In 2012, the CBO said it “Social Security disability” program is now is set to be bankrupt the by 2016!

Obama and the democratic party’s socialist agenda is the Big Lie of the twentieth century.

History proves Socialism promised prosperity, equality, and security, but it delivered poverty, misery, and tyranny. Equality was achieved only in the sense that everyone was equal in his or her misery!

@ clear voice

Instead of talking out of your ass, provide some facts. These ignorant Conservatives can't name a policy the middle class benefited from under Reagan and Both Bushes. Obama's budget spending WILL NOT hit the books for about 10 YEARS! Bush 43 reckless spending is NOW on the books. Get your chit straight! Obama policies is causing tyranny? Get a life!

Yep medicare bankrupt by 2024 at current obama spending. SS bankrupt in 2036 with Obamas current spending.

yet its Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney who are the bad guys for wanting to see these programs last longer than 12 years and 24 years respectively.

Here is a plan for the libs. Just put everyone on Medicare and SS right now!! That way everyone can get it and its free!! Who cares if we don't have the money for it!! Just print more!! Let the rich pay for all of us!!

Yea Obama doesn't have a plan for saving medicare and SS. So that means Romneys plan is unacceptable according to libs.

Who is going to pay for all this when the well runs dry in 2024? I am sure the libs will try and blame bush for the iraq war as being the reason why medicare went broke! LOL

Cee-290862

You have got to be the biggest idiot in the world. One benefit for the working middle class under reagan? How about unemployment under 8.3% Now tell me how Obama is helping the middle class with higher unemployment then what Reagan had?

You sir are a complete DOLT. All this money obama has spent and we are no better off. Wait let me guess. Four more years of wreckless spending right? That will solve it right? Then after 8 years of obama, you will just blame it all on bush again.

Jimmy carter failed with the same policies that obama is trying to use. Obama is repeating history and he will be toast in November. It will be ugly!!!!

Amy -- Great posts. Thank you. I'm tempted to recount the time when I was in high school and I read both "the Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged". But I'll just do the Reader's Digest version: It was a rush; I felt like I had all the answers to all the questions in the world. Then, one weekend when my uncle was in town (he was a self-made multi-millionaire, and it was always a great honor to have him stay with us in our tiny house) I presented him with those books, thinking he would be proud of me. He exploded in anger, ripping the pages out and stomping on them. I don't remember exactly what he said, but I'll never forget how that felt.

I think now that he must have been saying that no person can succeed without the help of others. My uncle was a great man who always gave when he thought it would help. A couple years later he helped me start a business (which I could not have done all by myself).

The point I'm trying to make is that Ayn Rand "philosophy" is like a cult; it seems to make sense, but it really doesn't. It can suck you in.

It's scary that we could have a V.P. candidate who believes in this cult, on the same ticket as another cult member.

Diane-1871215

You said "My son has a Masters Degree in Economics...he's definitely supporting President Obama".

Does your son have a job? If he does he must work for the Government.

Clear......anymore possible lies in the bag of tricks your carrying?

Up to %700 billion+ savings in Medicare comes from cutting over payments to Big Pharma and providers. And yes, with the lobby these providers have, it is a big deal to end these subsidies -- now that is courage. This savings extended the solvency of Medicare for eight years, and increased benefits to seniors by closing the donut hole.

Do people realize that $700 billion, which is also the amount Ryan's plan cuts from Medicaid, is the same amount of money in the Cayman Islands in lost revenue to the US treasury? That is about the same amount as the stimulus was as well. Imagine what could be done if the rich paid their fair share?

In regard to the healthcare systems of the three countries Romney visited (UK, Israel, and Poland) all of these countries enjoy national health care systems. The tribute the UK paid during the Olympics to their national health care was a testament to it. Unfortunately we have Republicans who don't have a clue and who block progress here in the US.

JC, We know the code. "reduce fraud and waste" aka I'll do nothing and say I did. Kind of like this one "saved or created" jobs..... see what I mean?

JC it became a plan when the insurance companies, drug companies, and device companies were given cart blanc to charge us out the wazoo for thier goods - we had to have some way of countering that greed and trimming the salary and bonus the fat cats at the insurance company is a good start.

UAWPL,

It is not "code'

Under the ACA law , there is money provided to set up models, simlar to the kind insurances companies use to

review the payments requests from doctors, hosptials within 90 days before they pay the claim.

I have a family member who is on a fraud team that is developing and using a model to review Meidcare claims for fraud or the "upcoding mistakes" by these providers.

It will save us all money.

Northstar,

That sounds pretty good! Will it save us enough money to be able to pay everyone's healthcare once they reach 65? I thought the problem was that they didn't take in enough money from the working people to cover all the bills for the retirees.

Nstar, No one controls costs better than the patient who is actually paying the bill for the services recieved. Maybe giving people vouchers will help them realize it really is their money and they would control their own fraud and waste? Instead of demonizing Paul Ryan maybe we should hear more about his plan??

The President mentioned fraud and waste even before he took office. the has been in office for more than 3 years. So why has the President been tolerating all of this waste and abuse in the first place?

UAW Pleeeeeeeease -- That's complete BS. Tell us how you go to the doctor and have to provide your insurance information upfront before services are rendered -- And if you don't think the 5 seconds the doctor spent with you was worth what you paid, did you demand a refund, and if so did you get a refund? NOT.

That is just as much a superstition as supply-side Reaganomics and Paul Ryan claiming that tax cuts pay for themselves and that cuts for the rich trickle down and that the rich are job creators. When are you people going to wise up stop buying the snake oil?

You are right TP we are so much better off just giving seniors and the newly minted medicaid recipients an Obamacare credit card and just tell them to not worry about the bill. <------That's sarcasm... ROMNEY/RYAN 2012!

UAW, how would we control our own fraud and waste? If the pharmaceutical company overcharges us for our prescription, or the hospital overcharges us for a box of kleenex or a treatment, how would we even know? Even if we did realize they overcharged us and want to do something, how would we go about it? Spend more money on a lawsuit? Your suggestion appears to be another one of those simplistic sound bites that seem to make sense until you drill down and discover that it just doesn't pan out.

UAW,

Have you seem your bill from a doctors visit? It is indeed in a code language. You know what the doctor said, what test he did and what he advised.

The doctor then has his billing dept send in payment request for services. Most insurance companies send this bill for review to companies looking for fraud and upcoding. These companies have detailed computer programs that spit out anything out of the ordinary or best pratice. The insurance company can then ask for the detailed doctor records of the visits. It is at this stage that the insurance company can see if this is a clerical error "an upcode" or really fraud, billing for something the doctor did not preform. All this must be done in 90 days or the insurance company must pay the bill regardless.

The most fraud cases with doctors are found in Florida and Manhattan,NY according to my family member.

Obama negotiated massive cuts from pharmaceuticals and hospitals based on the fact millions more will be buying/using their services and will be paid. Pretending these cuts will reduce availability is simply wrong. A hospital emergency room that gets paid for 90% of the care they deliver instead of half allows them to cut costs. Drug companies selling more drugs reduces cost.

Ryans plan makes similar cuts but he hasn't negotiated anything so there's no guarantee it wouldn't all be from medicare patients. Anyone really believe that people at age 67, the new eligibility age will be able to buy insurance for anywhere close to medicare when they add in 20%+ for profit and overhead for these for profit companies?

Larry-367607 say, "Obama negotiated massive cuts from pharmaceuticals and hospitals based on the fact millions more will be buying/using their services and will be paid."

When, between golf and vacations or campaign speeches? Liberals on this blog know more about what Obama has done then he does. In fact, what liberals don't know they simply make up. Which is all they have done with the "Romney Plan" for which details have yet to be released. The theme song for the Democratic National Convention has to be Send In The Clowns.

One of the great liberal myths is that if you are elected vice president anything you ever proposed will automatically become law. Which you would have to assume means that liberals will allow Romney to ignore the law like they have with Obama. Worked on immigration, apparently liberals are suggesting it will work on Medicare as well.

When Obama took office Medicare was going broke in 8 years, and now it is said to be going broke in 12. Now according to Obama and the liberals on this site he has saved Medicare for future generations. Who knew that four years represented future generations? The Obama presidency can be summed up like this, Obama will say anything to try and convince you he has done something. Yup, Send In The Clowns.

AMEN,TheNikNik! Well said!

little Niki, psst your bigotry is showing. but you should feel at home in your libtard KuKlos

**

No guy, it is deeper than that, could be the mittens family actually committed voter fraud in MA? I'm thinking that is the ticket, wink, wink.

guy-2789881

If you trust Obama with Obamacare and the IRS to ensure the collections of taxes and fees for the program is done correctly, then why do you doubt they could not find a tax cheat for over 10 years according to Harry "we have legal hookers in my state," Reid.

kamo....Thats what I am saying. If he has done no wrong let him release his returns and shut the Dems. up. At least then he can stop sending his wife out there to defend themselves against these frivolous accusations.

guy - if the accusations were frivolous - as you say - I'm sure the returns would have been released.

Obama/Biden 2012

I wouldn't let the Obama campaign read my junk mail, much less give them old tax returns to try and make stupid comments about. We are talking about a campaign that accused Romney of killing someone's wife. I'd have zero respect for Romney if he released anything else on his taxes. David Axelrod and his smear machine cannot steal an election for the loser again.

Your right, Ann Romney's claims make no sense. If there is nothing to hide, why hide it?

The only possible reason is that they know that if they do release more it will make them look bad. The little bit that they have released so far showed how they hide money overseas and have 102 million dollars in an IRA account which as most people know is only allowed to have 5K put into it per year, so how did they get 102 million dollars into an IRA in 15 years?

CHEATING!

Why the money hidden overseas? Why isn't AMERICA good enough for your money Mittens?

You think it could be the filthy rich doesnt want the little people to know that they pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than most of the middle class? They dont want the middle class to know they hide their money overseas. They dont want people to know that all those contributions over the years buying politicians opened up so many loopholes that a lot of the rich pay zero in taxes. That is why Romney needs to come clean and not be like Leona Helmsley who once said that "Only the little people pay taxes."

We know he didnt mind dodging the draft. Maybe he also doesnt mind dodging taxes.

Paul Ryan's plan would make it legal for Romney to pay only an .082% tax rate on capital gains, carried interest, etc. It is clear these two plutocrats just don't want to pay any taxes -- We can see this in the tax policies they are trying to pass off on the American people.

This is the debate going back to the Buffet Rule -- That 1%ers like Romney and Ryan must pay a minimum tax rate on par with their secretaries. It isn't so much whether Romney did anything illegal, rather should it be legal for him to pay only a 13.9% tax rate or less? The majority says NO.

And now we have returned to the Agnew Spiro days again. We have a wealthy candidate (the richest in history) who has already been busted for lying about his taxes to be eligible to run for governor of Massachusetts who refuses to follow in his own father's footsteps. Let's amend the constitution to required 10 years tax returns to be president -- this makes even more sense than the birth certificate, hmm?

Republicans should just hope Romney will lose and go away. The can of worms he and Ryan are opening are not debates they want to have. Too bad, you already have Shyster and Miser running on the Gilded Age platform, and you'll have to live with it.

Nice to finally find someone who knows what carried interest is. Every time I point out how this special rate just for people like Romney is unfair everyone thinkls I'm talking about capital gains.

John,

You obviously didn't read above....

"As First Read has written before, Obama’s plan would slow the growth of Medicare spending, but the cuts would mostly affect insurance and health-care providers, not seniors. Plus, Paul Ryan’s budget plan contains the same cuts."

There you go....

Vipp

Those great Health providers. For sure when they get the "slow expansion," that is a forecast by Obama and NOT actual numbers which cant be known, they will surely not make it up elsewhere through dded cost here or no services there.

Are you one of those that sees a sale for $4.99 and think the sale price is $4.00 bucks?

Vipp,

old John with # is relying on his "common knowledge" defense rather than read the article.LOL

Kamo,

I'm not sure I understand your "sentence" about slow expansion. It's English but so poorly written that I can't understand. Can you please re type? Thanks.

As for your second sentence my answer is no. I'm a realist...I see things as they are.

What I see are Republicans who are complaining about Obama's 500 to 700 billion dollar medicare cut yet support an opposing campaign who is seeking to keep those same cuts. Which, as a realist, I find fascinating.

So which is it Kamo....do you support the cuts or not? If you do then you side with Obama and Romney. If you don't then you don't agree with either.

Kamo can't put a sentence together in a way that makes sense to anyone but himself.

Probably home schooled.

owencoffin

You guys are too funny. I guess you Libs talk about immigration but when you have a real immigrant like myself posting, you cant handle it. You cant dispute the facts, you go after my ESL. HAHAH too funny. Typical Libs

Not only I'm I a legal immigrant, I'm a rich one because of the American Dream!

People like me and those is my country of birth sit back and wonder why those born in such a country as the US, with so many opportunities, why the Libs that have no idea what true poverty is, inability to move up in station or other real obstacles in life in the rest of the world think someone taxes and the other petty things Libs complain about are real issues.

Why do you think people from China, India, Korea and Japan to name a few come here and able to make great strides and success here. Simple, many Americans have become so lazy and complacent and dont realize they where born in the best country in the world. How else can you explain all the fat people....

John-4274116 -- Stop coming in here and *swooping and pooping* without reading other posts or even the article. This isn't FOX Nation or TheBlaze.

Right wing spite owen. This is the GOP throwing everything they can against the wall. We are not going to fall for it. President Obama has strengthened Medicare. He made reforms that have saved millions of seniors with Medicare hundreds of dollars on their prescriptions. Obama's plan will slow the growth of Medicare spending, but the cuts will mostly affect insurance and health care providers, not seniors. Ryan's Budget has the same cuts but seniors will bear the brunt of the costs. Ryan's Budget would give future seniors a voucher or premium support to purchase private insurance or purchase it through Medicare. This Ryan Plan will put the squeeze on the elderly. With the voucher program there would no longer be the guarantee of Medicare. Honestly it comes down to who do you trust. I really trust President Obama and Democrats to protect all Americans and we will see republicans continue to oppose all tax increases for the wealthy and insist on more and more cuts to every program and benefit that the middle class and working poor depend on. Our economy will improve with more jobs coming back to America and with more jobs being created. We can look forward to a better future with a responsible and decent government that is working for all people, not just the for the 1% and corporate greed.

John: Don't even pretend you think Obamas plan will lead to lower benefits than Romneys no one's that stupid.

Obama negotiated massive cuts from pharmaceuticals and hospitals based on the fact millions more will be buying/using their services and will be paid under Obamacare.. Pretending these cuts will reduce availability is simply wrong. A hospital emergency room that gets paid for 90% of the care they deliver instead of half allows them to cut costs. Drug companies selling more drugs reduces cost.

Democrats have been calling "slowing growth" a cut in spending for years. That is how cuts happen from Democrats, just reduce the planned future increase slightly and call it a cut. But what does Obama mean when he says slowing the growth of Medicare, is Obama going to treat Medicare like a plant and cut back on the light period? Liberals actually buy into the notion that Obama has done great things for Medicare, negotiated massive cuts. When, between golf and vacations or campaign speeches?

Liberals on this blog know more about what Obama has done then he does. In fact, what liberals don't know they simply make up. Which is all they have done with the "Romney Plan" for which details have yet to be released. One of the great liberal myths is that if you are elected vice president anything you ever proposed will automatically become law.

Which you would have to assume means that liberals will allow Romney to ignore the law like they have with Obama. Worked on immigration, apparently liberals are suggesting it will work on Medicare as well. The theme song for the Democratic National Convention has to be Send In The Clowns.

When Obama took office Medicare was going broke in 8 years, and now it is said to be going broke in 12. According to Obama and the liberals on this site he has saved Medicare for future generations. Who knew that four years represented future generations? The Obama presidency can be summed up like this, Obama will say anything to try and convince you he has done something. Yup, Send In The Clowns.

The money President Obama took from medicare is money for Medicare Advantage.

This program allowed insurance companies to offer HMO plans to seniors in place of traditional medicare. The government gave the insurance companies subsidies to administer these plans and then paid the insurance companies more than medicare pays the doctors directly for the same service.

Why would anyone think it is a good idea to pay more for the same service? This is the money that President Obama took from medicare! This has been pointed out before---He uses that money for healthcare as opposed to the republican plan that uses that money to give more tax cuts to the top.

kamo, you need to see if someone in your family can loan you enough money to buy a tv with more than one channel (faux) and a computer that lets you choose the websites you really like to visit.

Union Baby, Tennessee

Wow you must really be cracking yourself up. Loan me money? Figures that the first thought with a Lib.....

Loan me, buy me, have someone else choose for me and let me know whats best for me........

Libs are too funny!

Or those who will blatantly lie or spin the truth to get elected. Any sane person really think Romney/Ryans plan won't cut benefits when he touts the massive savings? Hard to explain a plan that gives 20% of every dollar paid to to profit insurance companies for profit and expenses and then claim the elderly won't be hurt. The truth is Romney and people like you don't care but know you can't sell it without lying.

I want to keep the healthcare plan I have now...but I know that Obama lied about that...this is all heading to a one-payor system in otherwords; the nationalization of healthcare...it's no secret that Obama and company cut Medicare by $700 B to help fund ACA.

Stop the nationalization of healthcare; stop Obamacare.

Romney and Ryan should pay more attention to AARP, the Catholic Church and the Nuns on a Bus. I think those are a trustworthy bunch and they all abhor the Ryan Plan. It's full of holes and does nothing for the middle class or the less fortunate, but by golly those 1%ers sure will get theirs.

And my son who will be 55 in about 20 years doesn't want a voucher. He wants affordable health care.

AARP has their hands in the system for a tune of 1 billion

The Obama presidency is easily summed up. Obama will say anything to try and convince you he has done something. Guaranteed to work on all liberals.

motherland1 - well if he is taxing the wealthy to nonexistence I'm all for it, unfortuantely I don't think that is what he is doing - I would be if I could, but he is not. Military needs to be reduced, we are not a policed state no matter how hard georgie and dickie tried to make it so, no one cares if you own a gun - we sure hope you will learn how to and when to use it, and no one trampled our constitution like georgie, dickie & rover. President Obama is trying to protect the working/middle class of which I am a part of and thankful he is doing so.

motherland1,

You have your list...

But heathcare is not on it.

Glad you have heath insurance and support the new ACA law that will provide millions of our citizens with affordable heath care.

You're what the right wing counts on mother. A very uninformed fool who won't see who did harm America, left office when we were in a recession, and when President Obama came in to help the country the GOP said no way and did not help. President Obama has fought for the good while the GOP has stood against everything to fix the republican mess of deregulation, war mongering, corporate greed and corruption. You're a nitwit and you have no facts, no truth, just stoogified gibberish from the low intelligent rabble who will vote for the corrupt republican billionaire bullies against our government and against of democracy.

Trickle down didn't work under Reagan and it won't work under Romney. Reagan got us out of a recession by tripling our deficit.

2. Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit. During the Reagan years, the debt increased to nearly $3 trillion, “roughly three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether.” Reagan enacted a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously. Despite the conservative myth that tax cuts somehow increase revenue, the government went deeper into debt and Reagan had to raise taxes just a year after he enacted his tax cut. Despite ten more tax hikes on everything from gasoline to corporate income, Reagan was never able to get the deficit under control.

3. Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. Unemployment jumped to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level. Meanwhile, income inequality exploded. Despite the myth that Reagan presided over an era of unmatched economic boom for all Americans, Reagan disproportionately taxed the poor and middle class, but the economic growth of the 1980′s did little help them. “Since 1980, median household income has risen only 30 percent, adjusted for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled,” the New York Times’ David Leonhardt noted.

Vickie: there are just some people, like yourself for example, that have no critical thinking skills. I would advise that you acquire some.

Obama will say anything to try and convince everyone he has actually done something. Guaranteed to work on all liberals.

Rick,

So you link Rev Wright thinking to Obama which may or may not be fair. Do you also link Ayn Rand to Paul Ryan's thinking? Ayn Rand was an atheist and was pro choice....can I assume that Ryan is as well?? He did "worship" her philosophy.

rick in CO,

Please explain exactly what Medicare benefit has been reduced for anyone on Medicare under the ACA law?

You cannot, because benefits were not cut!

Yea Rick,

As Northstar said. They took out $500 B to pay the bills and did not change the services that get delivered.

While I am not quite sure how that helps with keeping an underfunded program running, at least now they can use the word "Super" and call it a super underfunded program. A word of advice, don't have any kids, they will be the ones that eventually have to pay the bills. But for now, WOOPIE! Everthing can just be added to the debt.

Obamacare emphasizes government control and central planning. The law empowers a panel of 15 unelected government officials, called the Independent Payment Advisory Board, to make changes to the Medicare program that will reduce Medicare spending: primarily paying doctors and hospitals less, as is done with the Medicaid program. Over time, liberal health-policy types hope that IPAB can be used to introduce rationing into Medicare, using the panel to determine what types of procedures and treatments that Medicare will and will not pay for.

No doubt, Obama is working hard to continue the safety net for seniors. After all he claims that now Medicare which was going broke in 8 years when he took office, is saved because his policies have extended the life to 12 years. Wow, a whole four more years! That is the same as whoops, four more years, well okay lets take credit for it. This fact is a simple one, Obama will say anything to try and convince everyone that he has actually done something. It is only guaranteed to work on liberals.

Yes there will indeed.

mis informed

There is one problem with the post by Job1, it isn't true. In fact it is exactly the opposite. Under the Ryan plan, you can go on a voucher program or stay on Medicare as it exists now. Under Obamacare the Obama administration takes $716 billion from Medicare and transfers it to Obamacare. This is not up from debate as it is in the bill. The a federal panel of 15 administrank tors is place in charge of Medicare to tell people what medical procedures Medicare will and will not pay for. These people are NOT medical professionals but Washington bureaucratic administrators. So what do you call administrators on a panel deciding what care you can get? It is called RATIONING!! You can argue about what you think the Ryan Plan will do. But it is clear what Obamacare will do because it is in writing.

The fact is that Obamacare loots medicare. I find it troubling that Obie's healthcare czar Nancy Ann DeParle is a strong proponent of "healthcare rationing".

That sounds an awful lot like the death panels that ex representative Allen Grayson of Florida had attributed to the republicans.

I find it amazing that no one is talking about Obie's hidden agenda, instead all you folks here want to figuratively rearrange the deck chairs on the titanic.

Wake the Hell up folks, Obie has a hidden agenda. In a second term, we will see bigger goverment, higher taxes for everyone that pays taxes(not just those earning more than 200K) a weaker military and a diminished position in the world. It is Obama's vision that should concern all voters!

As far as Obama is concerned the public can suck it. He doesn't care what they think.

Nichole, do you really think either one of those two multimillionaires on the GOP ticket give a damn about you?

But the President promised and he always keeps his promise because he is the President of the United States of America. All hail the Chief!. GITMO is still closed is it not. The stimulus solved our unemployment problem did it not. The President promised that the 2012 federal deficit will not exceed 229.27 billion dollars. Now hat is really a hard one because even his own White House is predicting that the President's Promise will not be kept. The President needs to tell the people how he is going to perform this magic trick because the fiscal year is almost over. Maybe he is expecting a visit from the deficit reduction fairy.

I think the people on the Republican ticket care more for Americans than the two millionaires in the White House now. If Obama cared about the American people he would have done something to create jobs instead of spending two years pushing Obamacare. Now we are at the same place we were four years ago. American don't need more welfare programs. They need jobs. Where are the jobs Mr. President!!

There is one problem with the post by Job1, it isn't true.

Ray, unlike you folks I do fact checks. That $700 billion in "cuts" that Republicans are talking about? Those are cuts in COST, not benefits!

Truth is 781 billion cut from social security to pay for bama care. highest rate of food stamps in our history. So yes he is doing both at the same time.

The President of the United States of America promised that he, personally, would go over the health care bill, "line by line" with my congressman and any other law maker in Washington who requested it. The President also promised that all proceedings regarding the health care bill would be broadcast on CSPAN. I am sure that the President and my congressman can arrange to have have a large group of experts to participate in the broadcasts to full discuss all related questions regarding each line of the bill. I want to see that all the promises that the President has made are kept.

But the difference is the Ryan Plan takes the $716 billion in supposed saving and places it in the Medicare Trust fund. So if the savings are not seen the money to cover the shortfalls is still in Medicare and seniors are not hurt. The Presidents plan takes the money and puts it in Obamacare.

RayW.

Dont waste your time, people like owencoffin copy and paste things and have no real clue. Then they have the nerve to think or call others names.

Because his accomplishments are more debt, entitlements and self serving attempts to get votes from the drainers of society.

And we'd clearly reduce the deficit by reducing the top 1% taxes an average $260,000 and a total of 500 billion a year in revenue. Hard to explain how such a plan is fiscally responsible isn't it? I'm sure this tax cut and increasing the military budget 260 billion a year will bring it right down.

actually a we take care of our selves and you trust the same privatise corporations wont be so bad, obviously the bush tactics of trickle down failures didnt work, many of you still follow these same evil tactics that dont work, maybe a ryan romney ticket that basically cuts off seniors unemployed all people on the lower end is needed , then finally america and the world can wake up to what the gop. limbaugh hanity is doing , obviously you havent yet, and yes romney and ryan are open about all this, many of us may need this, those trying to face a walmart on our own, those of us facing the reality of just getting by till hopefu;y its over, those of us who need to see how a non union workforce eliminated brings us all down including policeman fireman teachers all of them maybe we need this then we can see if we are better off with there way or not-im a firm believer you need a customer base to survive they are not most likely they win so lets see??

not a troll

I am all for the privitized option and have been fighting for it since the Reagan Era.

I want control of my health care and finances and I will take control of my Social Security Benifits and place it in double digit gains as I am a Level 3 trader.

Romney is giving seniors choices to stay on the current plans or make your own choice free from government intervention.

The truth is Obama took $716 billion out of Medicare. You just charge that Republicans will do it. Obama DID IT!!! This is not disputed. Maybe it ought to be privatized so Democrats can't STEAL more money from it.

actually john i thankyou for not calling me a communist or worst, i apprecitate someone like you being a good blogger and dont put off your comments as hurtful etc, thankyou for being on here and yes i appreciate you it may be in the long run me and many others are better off, thankyou very kindly for your comments and you contribution to this blog

Not A troll

I am an Independent and voted for Reagan and Clinton because of the policies and where our country was at and going.

Bush did some good things but made many mistakes during his presidency.

I am one who does not let the lies of the media from either from NBC or Fox or from the Candidates make my decisions.

I make my decisions by spending several hours vetting all candidates and claims by the media.

Yes I have spent several months looking at the issues from the GAO,CBO,CMS, health care professionals and insurance industry.etc. Of course being a level 3 trader makes the financial part easy.

again thank you

Romneys a liar. It's impossible to keep medicare benefits the same and have a voucher system that only the wealthy would choose. The only way enough people would choose a voucher system would be if medicare benefits were slashed enough to be a viable option. For a voucher system that runs it through insurance companies adding 20% or more for profit and overhead. He said medicare would remain but clearly it wouldn't make the savings Romney claims without massive cuts. Time for Romney to man up and admit the actual effect.

Jeff

Dumb Pelosi and her cronies didn,t even read the largest tax increase on the middle class before passing it.

The cronies waited days for the bill to come hot off the press of Behind closed doors HHS. Written by greedy trial lawyers and not congress which violates article 7 of the Constitution

so obviously you trust the private companies to allow you health care with a voucher etc, good luck with this, I in your wives defense hope your right , we most likely will know within a few short years -good luck my friend, yes my friend you are a fellow american and so much so your wife , i wait to listen to you friend and what happens its people like you who will show us the real truth even though i know your currently slanted the other way, your oppinion matters to me much, hopefully mine does to you in the futire

That's b.s. plain and simple.

Yes I do trust the private sector as HMOS like Humana and Kaiser are a few of the best run companies around who have managed costs and kept the quality of care.

87% of receipts from these two HMOS go to actual health care for the patient.

That is because our leader Obama put this into the "Obama Care" bill. They would not have paid this out otherwise. Plus, Medicare has a much better number on this payout. Do your homework...

You do realise the Ryan plan which Romney says he'll sign contains the same cuts to the supplemental insurance don't you? At least under Obama your children won't be stuck with a $500 voucher when the cheapest insurance will be $1200 or $1300 a month. Read Ryans plan it makes the same cuts as Obamas for current retirees.

John; You find these companies reasonable on their coverage. Think you'll still feel that way when you're buying health insurance at 67? Under current medicare rates deductions are a small deduction of your social security check. Would you be as happy if it took all of it just for insurance?

There has never been dental or vision care with Medicare that I ever heard about!

If ignorance is bliss,Republicans must be the happiest people on earth.