The GOP scheme to give giant tax cuts to billionaires and corporations is well on its way to becoming law. The plan will blow an unprecedented $1.4 trillion hole in the National Debt. In order to make-up for the Republican largess to their rich donors, huge automatic cuts in spending will likely kick-in. An estimated $25 billion per year will be taken from Medicare alone.
But that is not enough punishment for those retired or near retirement. After finishing their job of enacting the largest ever transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich, Republicans will just be hitting their stride. Next on their agenda? A total and complete gutting of both Social Security and Medicare.
Much buzz has been made over Paul Ryan's interview yesterday on Denver right-wing radio. Most of the conversation centered on Ryan's next plans for his GOP majority. Ryan boasted, “We're going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit. ... Frankly, it's the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the healthcare entitlements — because that's really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking.”
The interviewer asked if Ryan was making an impact on Trump when talking to him about the importance of Medicare "reform". Ryan responded, "This is my big thing for many, many years. I think its the biggest "entitlement" that's got to have reform."
It is no big surprise that, with Republicans now in power, Ryan plans to gut the Social Security and Medicare benefits you have earned. After all, this has been a central feature of Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" manifestos for years. In these documents, Ryan has advocated the privatization of Social Security and replacing Medicare with discount coupons for private insurance.
Ryan claims that even as a college student, he was dreaming about gutting the safety net. While everyone around him was thinking about dating and classes and parties, young Paul was pondering the block-granting of Medicaid. He was wondering how he could deny healthcare to millions of Americans.
But Ryan cannot destroy Social Security and Medicare all by himself. He needs the complicity of the entire Republican Party. How does the rest of the Wisconsin Congressional delegation feel about taking a wrecking-ball to your retirement security? Do they share in Ryan's youthful fantasy?
Certainly, Jim Sensenbrenner is on-board. In a 2016 statement, he said, "Every day that goes by, the situation grows worse and will require more drastic changes to the Social Security and Medicare programs. The time to act is now. The health and security of all Americans depend on it.”
Sensenbrenner's record on the two crucial programs for retirees leaves something to be desired. He has earned an abysmal 5% Lifetime Rating from the Alliance for Retired Americans (AFRA). Jim got a "thumbs down" rating on 10 of 11 key Medicare votes, as reported by MedicareVotes.org. He is certainly not an advocate for his district's older constituents.
Glenn Grothman is no better on strengthening these programs for retired Americans. He has a 0% lifetime rating from the AFRA and "thumbs down" on all three of his three key Medicare votes.
Senator Ron Johnson just admitted that he is OK with adding 2 to 3 trillion dollars to the National Debt to fund GOP tax cuts for the wealthy. Yet, he claims that we cannot afford the programs that keep so many of our elderly out of poverty. He famously compared Social Security to a giant Ponzi scheme. He voted for Paul Ryan's plot to turn Medicare into a discount coupon plan. Johnson has certainly earned his failing 2% lifetime rating from the AFRA.
In stark contrast, Senator Tammy Baldwin and Representatives Gwen Moore, Mark Pocan, and Ron Kind have earned 100%, 100%, 100%, and 89% Lifetime ratings, respectively from the AFRA. The four Democrats in Wisconsin's Congressional delegation are 7/7, 9/10, 4/5, and 10/11 for "thumbs up" on key Medicare votes since 2003. Wisconsin Democrats stand with our state's seniors.
There is no more clear cut difference between the two major parties than on Social Security and Medicare policy. Wisconsin Congressional Democrats consistently vote to preserve the programs, while state Republicans vote to demolish them. We know which party is looking-out for the interests of retired Wisconsinites and those who plan to retire someday. We know which party's candidates deserve to be sent to Washington in 2018.
I have to confess. I am a fiscal conservative. Other than during a deep recession or national emergency, I believe that the Federal Government should not spend more money than it takes in.
Senator Ron Johnson has long claimed to be a fiscal conservative, too. However, Johnson has totally reversed himself by supporting current GOP efforts to slash federal taxes on corporations and the ultra-rich.
While we are running deficits, we have absolutely no business in drastically increasing defense spending. We should not take-on purposeless multi-billion dollar projects like the DOTUS's Great Wall. We cannot afford to waste tens of billions on political stunts like IQ45's ending of supplemental ACA payments. We cannot justify huge pay-outs to the profitable pharmaceutical and fossil-fuel industries. And most of all, we should not reduce the amount of money coming-in by enacting humongous tax cuts.
Although I reject Sen. Ron Johnson's Tea Party approach on almost every issue, I have agreed with him on one thing. I saw Johnson's budget Power Point presentation several years ago during a West Bend town hall. He made the point that the growing Federal debt is a big problem. I totally agree. I appreciate the fact that he has brought attention to this problem. However, I do not agree with his placing the blame on Social Security and Medicare. We should not gut these programs that we have paid-into in our entire working lives.
But Johnson can no longer claim to be a fiscal conservative. He is currently a big proponent of so-called tax reform. There are two things he, and all Republicans, co-mix in that term. There is tax simplification, in which many of the byzantine rules of the current tax code would be revised to make filing taxes simpler. It is hard to argue against this. Who doesn't like the idea of a tax-return the size of a postcard?
However, the GOP's main drive for "tax reform" is not simplification. That is merely a diversion. The real motivation is to cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations. This fiscally destructive move is being insisted on by major Republican donors. Depending on the final details, the GOP bill will add between $1.5 and $2.2 TRILLION dollars to the national debt over the next ten years.
Anyone who is concerned about deficits should be terrified of the Republican tax plan. This isn't rocket science. If you bring-in less money than you spend, then you run deficits. If you enact policies that drastically axe the amount of money coming-in, you make those deficits even larger.
However, many of the Republican politicians touting tax reform want us to believe that multi-trillion-dollar tax cuts will fund themselves. They are feeding us the lie that we will miraculously see such incredible economic growth that the government will actually see higher revenue. Variously called trickle-down economics, or voodoo economics, or bullshit, this has been shown time after time to simply not work. It didn't work in the '80's under Reagan. It didn't work in the 00's under Bush. It isn't working at the state level in the basket-case of Kansas.
Congressional Republicans put so much faith in the myth of self-funding tax cuts that they are calling on the CBO to score their tax-giveaway using fantasy numbers. They do not want the CBO to use realistic projected economic growth numbers to determine how badly the federal debt will balloon (so-called static scoring). They want the CBO to assume much higher growth rates, so that the resultant debt will not appear so cataclysmic (so-called dynamic scoring).
Like most Republicans, Ron Johnson has totally reversed his Obama-Era position that the deficit is important. He wants to run the US into ruinous debt by giving huge tax breaks to the already wealthy and to corporations enjoying record profits. During a September interview with the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, Johnson said that the tax reform he supports will lead to "a somewhat lowering of rates. From my standpoint, not even close to enough, but it's better than nothing."
Earlier this month, Johnson confessed that he was fine with being responsible for adding trillions to America's debt, "Just agree we’re going to lose money on a static scoring basis. I’m happy to live with a $2-3 trillion static loss."
So Ron Johnson is supporting what will be the largest corporate tax give-away ever. He is supporting a Republican effort to run America into a ditch of financial ruin. He is supporting policies that mortgage our children's future to give tax breaks to the one percent. He would be happy to add $3 trillion to the national debt. Fiscal conservative, my eye !
