Stung By Medicare Vote, House GOP Scrambles For Crib Notes

By voting for Paul Ryan's (R-OH) disastrous 2012 Budget proposal, they dutifully followed their GOP leaders off a cliff and got smashed on the jagged rocks of political backlash below. All but four House Republicans loyally voted to dismantle Medicare, hand all its money to insurance industry cronies, and pawn off future seniors with worthless coupons the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office revealed wouldn't cover a third of the cost of the private premiums, co-pays, deductibles and other expenses elders would be forced to incur. All but four Republicans were left naked and exposed to merciless scythes of Medicare rage.

Now, the House Republican cohort is being asked to consider raising the nation's debt ceiling, and the rank-and-file are reportedly too terrified of the consequences to think straight.

After voting to destroy Medicare and condemn to horrible destitution and death anyone not rich enough to pay cash on the barrel head for doctors and hospitals, House Republicans went home on their Spring break to discover the townsfolk weren't waiting to shower them with rose petals and garlands in grateful obeisance. They were stunned by the howling, angry crowds that descended on their town hall meetings to vent their wrath. The GOP frosh were especially stunned their constituents weren't falling over each other exclaiming adoring exaltations for the Republican triumph that gave the nation's great plutocrats more tax cuts and subsidies while doing away with disgusting government handouts to poverty-stricken filth like themselves. Surely the unwashed masses could understand they had to die as painfully and miserably as possible in the service of bigger tax breaks for their betters?

Horrified by their experience, Republicans now faced voting to raise the nation's $14.2 trillion debt ceiling. Unless Congress raises the debt ceiling, the federal government won't be able to borrow money to fund operations, send out Medicare or Social Security checks, or make payments on existing debt obligations. The normally pro forma vote would allow the US government to continue paying its bills, and avoid a meltdown in the global bond markets that would crash the world financial system.

Astonishingly, Republican legislators who got third degree burns voting to dismantle Medicare are terrified they'll be fried into scorched bits of crispy, blackened cinders unless they vote against raising the debt ceiling.

That's right, Republicans are so afraid of what'll happen if they raise the debt ceiling, they'd destroy America's credit rating, torch the bond markets, and crash the world financial market; they'd cut off everyone's Social Security and Medicare payments; they'd grind the entire vast mechanism of government to a halt to avoid a backlash.

"I don't think you are going to see a lot of Republicans, after what they've done on Medicare, willing to put their necks out any more before the next election because the heads were already chopped off in New York and all the demagoguery," said Steve Chabot (R-OH), referring to last month's special election for disgraced shirtless e-stalker Chris Lee's perennially Republican New York 26th Congressional District seat. Upstart Kathy Hochul (D-NY) scored a stunning upset victory in what has largely been seen as a referendum on Ryan Medicare Counponization.

Although the Republican leadership has demanded trillions in additional tax giveaways to the ultra rich in the form of spending cuts before they'll make any move toward raising the debt ceiling, many Republicans, burned by their Medicare-busting vote, have sworn they won't hike the debt ceiling no matter what.

Republicans are obsessed with the exhortations of Tea Party fanatics back home who promise to scourge any Republican who would vote to hike the debt limit. These are the very same Tea Party fanatics who swore they'd scourge any Republican who didn't vote to destroy Medicare.

Republicans, fearing the same sort of backlash they got listening to Tea Party knuckleheads on Medicare, are too terrified to defy the Tea Party knuckleheads on the debt ceiling. Go figure.

If Johnny tells you to stick your hand in the fire, and you do, and your hand turns into a charred stump of searing, excruciating pain, most of you have enough sense to ignore Johnny when he next tells you to jump off the bridge. Johnny told House Republicans to stick their hands in the fire, and the House Republicans ended up with charred stumps of searing excruciating pain. Now, Johnny is telling House Republicans to jump off the bridge, and House Republicans, anxious to avoid another disaster, have decided their only alternative is to listen to Johnny again.

House Republicans, you need to stop copying off your jock and cheerleader friends. Paul Ryan and Michele Bachmann (R-MN) look good, but that's just the problem. You need to be copying off of nerds. You need to cast your mind back to the time you weren't going to get to play in the Big Game unless you passed your Civics exam, and coach brought in that nerdy four-eyes who didn't know a zone coverage from a back-side blitz and told you to copy off of him.

Remember how you howled that nerdy four-eyes wasn't ever going to get you through Civics, 'cause Civics was so way too stupid for anybody to figure out, let alone some geek who couldn't even do one push-up? Remember how coach just smiled wisely, like when he called for the dive play against that three-deep zone? You copied off the cheat sheet the nerd gave you:  a.; c.; c.; d.; b.; Executive, Legislative, Judiciary; thinking this ain't gonna work, no way, and you were gonna miss the Big Game with all the scouts and there'd be no celebratory making out with Becky Sue afterward, when, whaddayaknow, coach was right all along, and you aced the test and got all the way to State, and that rich alum said how you were so smart he'd be happy to help you get started in politics, remember?

This is just like that time. And, just like that time, even though it makes no sense to you, you're going to have to copy off some nerd, because you're in this wacky upside-down world where showing a girl naked pictures of yourself is thought of as a bad thing.

So, here's some nerds you can copy off of:

• Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) - All your jock and cheerleader friends make fun of Nancy all the time, and she's nowhere near as hot as Michele Bachmann, so you know she's good to copy off of.
• Barney Frank (D-MA) - Same as Nancy.
• Paul Krugman - Krugman is a real egghead at this super-egghead school called Princeton. He won that stupid prissy Nobel Prize thing which is so nerdy it's European.

Krugman is probably your best bet to copy off of, as your GOP pals would notice you hanging around Nancy or Barney, and get the wrong idea. Krugman doesn't even work in Washington. He has a column in The New York Times, which you can take into the bathroom shoved inside a copy of Playboy, and you can just copy off what he says there.  In fact, you could just click here to copy off what Krugman says.

House Republicans would do alright if they could just get straight in their heads who they should be copying off of.