Ryan's Plan ~ Screw Everyone Under 55

Since I just turned 52 a few weeks ago and my husband is 49, Paul Ryan makes my blood run cold. He wants to keep Medicare for his Mom's generation, but destroy it for the late baby boomers who were born after 1959. How conveeenient!

Here it is from his own Twitter account:

Medicare should not be used as a piggy bank for Obamacare. Medicare should be the promise that is kept to current seniors. Period.
— Paul Ryan (@PaulRyanVP) August 18, 2012

Get that? Current Seniors, not Future Seniors. Appeal to the safety of those currently receiving Medicare, since they are more likely to vote Republican, but throw the rest of uf under the bus.

This way our children will always be poor because they have to take care of us, our grandchildren won't thrive because all family money will go to hospitals and big pharma and nursing homes, and the only people who have a chance in the future are those like himself and Mitt with inherited wealth and no need for Medicare. The rich get richer and more powerful on tax cuts, and the middle class ceases to exist.

Ryan couldn't have been more honest and yet more repugnant today, using his mother as a prop for the sympathy vote, promising to save Medicare for his Mama and her friends - wealthy people who don't need help - but cutting the rest of us off with only "vouchers" that we can't afford on Social Security. Oh yeah - he wants to cut that, too.


Candidate Paul Ryan's Florida Speech, via MSNBC

Like a lot of Americans, when I think about Medicare it's not just a program, it's not just a bunch of numbers, it's what my mom relies on, it's what my grandma had. Medicare was there for our family, for my grandma, when we needed it then; and Medicare is there for my mom while she needs it now, and we have to keep that guarantee.

Our solution to preserve, protect, and save Medicare does not affect your benefits. Let me repeat that. Our plan does not affect the benefits for people who are in or near retirement.

. . . bureaucrats will not mess with my mom’s healthcare or your mom’s healthcare.

It’s a promise that was made and it’s a promise that must be kept. To save it for this generation, you have to reform it for my generation so it doesn’t go bankrupt when we retire.

Save Medicare for this generation - not the next generation. You got that, folks??? He truly couldn't give a flying flip about the rest of us.

From the Tampa Bay Times

Behind him hung a big sign: "Protect & Strengthen MEDICARE."

Above him circled a single-engine plane with a banner: "Paul Ryan keep your hands off our Medicare."

The Villages is a massive retirement community about 50 miles northwest of Orlando, and one of the biggest Republican strongholds in Florida.

A fire marshal estimated 10,000 people attended the event, though the crowd appeared smaller. Four years ago, newly minted vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin came to The Villages after the Republican National Convention, drawing a crowd estimated at 25,000 to 60,000.

The seniors holding anti-Obamacare signs and sipping breakfast-hour cocktails Saturday morning in the village square consistently said they applauded Ryan's talk about entitlement reform, and noted that it did not affect anyone 55 or over.

Wow - that's just great. Turn the seniors against the next generation, their younger brothers and sisters and cousins, Obama's generation. Put us in poverty forever.

But we will not thank you.

After today, there is no doubt that Ryan really is a follower of Ayn Rand making an appeal to selfishness. It makes him happy to have Medicare take care of his Grandma and his Mom, but screw everyone else. The 99% are just parasites who deserve to die off anyway.

"Let Them Eat Cat Food"

It's a Darwinian approach that even Sarah Palin would say is right up there with "Death Panels."

Of course, an optimist would say that such speeches may be the death knell of the Romney/Ryan ticket, too, because he isn't mincing words about what he wants to do. He's not as good a liar as Mitt, and that may be his downfall. Hope springs eternal that people hear this stuff and begin to have doubts.

Will the seniors buy what he is selling? Seniors are usually more conservative nationally and locally. They are famous for voting against raising taxes for schools because their own kids are grown and their grandchildren go to private schools. Not one dime for anyone else, they will say, especially for anyone of color.

Sadly, yes, it might work. But we can still fight back while we can.

This guy is the coldest fish to come along in a while. Anyone who is still on the fence after that speech just isn't paying attention.

Romney Plans to Cut PBS, Welfare, Amtrak and the Arts

I'm speechless. To me, whenever the Republicans try to cut PBS it seems like an attack on children in particular. These types of cuts have been going on since the Nixon years and I can't figure out how any of it helps most Americans, except making things more difficult or less interesting. Also it puts the burden back on the states, especially with PBS, which most people love.

And as far as sending housing and food stamps back to the states, and cutting funding for Amtrak . . . um . . . that would make Romney a very unpopular president, if he was ever going to be president, which I doubt.

Stupid is as stupid does.

From Huffington Post

Romney identified subsidies for Amtrak, PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities as things he would eliminate. The government spends $444 million a year on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (the parent organization of PBS); Amtrak received $1.56 billion in federal funding in 2010, with $1.3 billion in stimulus funds; while the National Endowment of the Arts lists the current level of federal funding at approximately $146 million.

Romney said he would block grant Medicaid and send programs like housing vouchers and food stamps back to the states. This, he argued, would save the federal government "approximately $100 billion a year within four years" (the House GOP budget claims to save $771 billion over 10 years). It would also mean dramatic cuts to each of these programs, as states are already dealing with major budget shortfalls.

. . . In sum, Romney's plan would put off entitlement reforms for 10 years, and rules out reductions in defense spending and major changes to the current tax code, while promising to bring federal spending below 20 percent of GDP by 2016. The Washington Post's Ezra Klein argues this is either fantasy mathematics, or Romney would essentially have to cut every single federal program by 40 percent.

Boehner and Cantor tried this a few years back, and got slammed for it. I hope the same thing happens to Romney and Ryan.


I wish Mr. Rogers were still around, but here he is pleading the case for Public TV back in 1969. Everyone should go and like this video, repost it, email and Facebook it. Mitt is as clueless as the guy interviewing Mr. Rogers who has never seen his show. Romney's handlers just told him that if they cut PBS they can have a war with Iran someday, and that's all his budget is about.