Senator Rubio tells the truth: GOP is coming for your Social Security/Medicare
Almost everyone other than Republican voters knew this was the case, but it rarely gets admitted by a Republican politician in public.
In a videotaped interview with two Politico reporters Wednesday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said the quiet parts out loud. Asked by interviewers Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman how to address the federal deficit, he replied: “We have to do two things. We have to generate economic growth which generates revenue, while reducing spending. That will mean instituting structural changes to Social Security and Medicare for the future.” (A video of Rubio’s appearance is here, with his remarks on Social Security and Medicare beginning at the 21:45 mark.)The only thing that’s new here is the explicit admission by a Republican officeholder that this is the GOP’s master plan to eviscerate the welfare and retirement of American workers. Budget analysts have seen it coming with all the subtlety of a freight train. As we reported earlier this month, the damage begins with the so-called PAYGO law (for “pay as you go”), which requires Congress to offset any increase in the federal deficit with spending cuts. The law limits Medicare cuts to 4% of its budget per year, or $25 billion of its $625-billion budget.
Will this finally wake up working class Republican voters? Or is their bubble too thick to penetrate?
But $25 billion a year is a drastic cut that “would undermine the delivery of care to the 57 million seniors and disabled Americans who depend on the program,” Max Richtman, head of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said a couple of weeks ago.The progressive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities observed that the Senate’s plan, which would add $1.5 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, would “create pressure for future cuts.” That’s confirmed by Rubio’s remarks to Palmer and Sherman.
...
“We still have time to responsibly structure those programs,” he said of Social Security and Medicare, “in a way that doesn’t impact current retirees or people about to retire, but in a way that would probably impact it for me and people younger than me.” (He’s 46.) This could be done “in ways you wouldn’t really notice and wouldn’t really object to.”No one should be fooled by this argument. Rubio is pursuing the classic strategy of the enemies of social insurance programs of making them increasingly irrelevant to future generations by promising cuts that the affected beneficiaries “wouldn’t really notice.” This only eases the path toward eliminating those programs outright.
Comments
How do you penetrate the bubble of people who carry
signs saying, "Keep your government hands off my Medicare?"
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Those are my family in a nutshell
and there is no reaching them. I once in a while break down and send something to my asshole stepmother but really, why in hell do I even bother? She's not going to believe me, and all she'll say is "well, all I can do is pay my own way, I just can't worry about other people." So I simply do not talk to her, I cannot, it would degenerate rapidly into yelling on my part.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
I just can't worry about other people.
That's the problem right there. We're a society, we're SUPPOSED to care about other people!! Instead it's 'got mine, fuck you.' Civilized, my ass. SMDH
This shit is bananas.
The warnings are going out
AARP
And really, why should he not just go
on ahead and tell the truth? We all see it, although the dumbest among us still simply refuse to see it. And that crap about the debt being due to SS and Medicare? My God, how to even argue against such blatant fucking stupidity. I feel like sending this one to my stepmother so I can thank her for those cuts I'm going to enjoy. Sure Rubio, you'll talk a good game about "protecting" current retirees, and you will protect the current assholes who keep on voting dumbshits like you into office over and over and over again. A younger version of St Ronnie the Fucking Dim. Jesus I hate these fucking people.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
My mother and her jackass bf voted for Dipshit.
And to be honest, I'm not surprised. When I told them I voted for Jill Stein they laughed at me and said 'hey, good choice, but wrong choice'. But then again these are people who believe any raise in wages will price people out of things.
Newsflash: The vast majority of the country is poor or damn close to it because for 40 years we've been priced out of every damn thing that isn't nailed down. Why else would consumer debt be so high across the board?
At any rate, I rarely speak to my mother at this point and there are times when I just want to slap both her and her bf for their brazen idiocy. Trust me, you aren't alone on this sort of thing.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
What happened to all the brilliantly wise old people
...I was always told to treasure like an endlessly giving resource?
You'd be surprised.....
.....with what decades of far-right propaganda can do to a person's mind. And now we have well-funded corporate shit throwers like PragerU and Patreon funded scum on youtube doing much worse to young adults, the kids and grandkids.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
Sadly, too many got Foxified
and fried what brains they had right out of their heads, some of them not only willingly but gleefully. I do get that they were as brainwashed as all the rest of us who believed in this rigged game but damn, most of them when presented with facts just either look away or flat out deny it. The hardest part for me? My Dad, who died owing both IRS and State of CA died on MediCal, and so did my stepmom's sister. Do you think she has any concept of just how much of a hypocrite she is? Nope, her answer is as stated above - "well, I just can't worry about that."
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
I wonder though, do they have 60 votes?
Zero always needed 60 votes, oh fucking stupid me
the D's are in on it also.
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
They don't need 60 votes to pass it
They are using reconciliation which only needs 50 votes to pass it. This is why they are leaving democrats out of this, even though they'd vote for it. But this way the democrats can look like they aren't the bad guys. If enough republicans don't vote for it, there are 2-4 democrats that will. Manchkin might vote for it anyway. This is more kabuki theater. We've are being played. Again.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
I pretty much thought this was the case
use reconcilliation to do what they want, it makes
one wonder why the D's never did that? Rhetorical.....
Donor's and Zero, the real Republicans.
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Only times the Dims did use reconciliation
was when they foisted the half-baked halfassed ACA on us instead of the radical reform (medical CARE, not medical insurance) that we really needed.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Was that also a Putin directive?
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Rubio for President lol! Gah. What a numknuts.
FWIW Bernie gets exercised and calls out Republicans, but why am I also worried about Grand Bargain Dems?
####
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
FWIW, Rubio, Bush, Kasich,
and to some extent, if I recall correctly, Cruz, 'ran on' cutting entitlements!
Can't believe that Michael Hiltzik doesn't know this. Also, Hiltzik knows, or should know, that the 'Pay Go' Rule was proposed/passed by a large Dem majority, and signed into law by a Dem President--likely in preparation for striking a Grand Bargain, considering the 'timing.' So, when he says this,
he is purposely deceptive when he doesn't explain 'who' is responsible for this so-called rule. (Already posted the background on this rule within the past week.)
More later on this topic, since we gotta run to the Credit Union.
Mollie
The original meaning of “fiscal conservative” may be gone. In fact,
____David Leonhardt, Journalist, NYT, January 9, 2017
BTW, Leonhardt is on the NYT Editorial Board, and a former Business/Economics Page writer.
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
I really don't get this!
The GOP must gave a death wish.
Only for others, never for themselves.
And their voters are still too damned dumb to see it.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Here's a thought...
You know one area of the budget that could certainly withstand massive cuts?
The military. They have so much money they don't even bother to keep track of it. That's not even snark.
The day before 9/11, Rumsfeld said $3.2 trillion unaccounted for
at the DoD (exact wording: DoD “cannot track $3.2 trillion in transactions”).
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a091001defensebudget&scale=0
Now the figure seems to be up to $8.5 trillion.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6H9F3Z8rVM]
Another source says $6.5 trillion.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/11/pentagon-money-pit/
Yet another source says $6.5 trillion was already unaccounted for in 1998.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2017/07/documentation-us-dept-defense-adm...
A trillion here, a trillion there, . . . pretty soon you’re talking real money.
http://www.everettdirksen.name/print_emd_billionhere.htm
@lotlizard
Have only read the Washington's Blog link so far, might be of too boggled a mind to read the others right away, but thank you so much for these links. No wonder so many are poverty-stricken/starving/dead. These psychopaths certainly don't mess around when it comes to criminal and outright traitorous acts in any area.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.