GOP Pushes RyanCare For All

With the United States Supreme Court, led by five Republican-appointed conservative activists, posed to dismantle President Barack Obama's landmark health care reform law, the GOP has tapped Tea Party stalwart Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to move forward with a new plan to expand his disgraced Medicare couponization scheme to include all Americans.

"While Republicans have advanced many good ideas on health care," Ryan told the conservative Hoover Institute think tank at Stanford University Tuesday, "it is my candid opinion that the party as a whole has yet to coalesce around a complete reform agenda aimed at dealing with the underlying problem - which is runaway inflation in the cost of health care."

Of course, the "many good ideas" all boiled down to more tax breaks for the wealthy, while cutting everyone else off at the knees.

The Politico reported Ryan and the GOP now want to expand their couponization scam to all Americans:

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan says it's time for Republicans to rally around a comprehensive "replacement" to President Barack Obama's signature health care reform legislation - with the government giving a limited contribution to help Americans get health coverage.

That's the model Ryan wants to apply through Medicare, Medicaid and employer-sponsored health insurance. It's the approach he used earlier this year for Medicare and Medicaid in the House-passed budget, but he now wants to expand it to workplace health insurance by giving people a refundable tax credit to help them buy coverage.

In other words, the GOP aimed not only to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid, but also to alleviate employers of the bothersome bottom line-squeezing practice of offering health care benefits. Then, they'd give everyone a tax credit toward buying private health insurance. In other words, if someone's rich enough to afford a private, individual insurance plan, he'd be rewarded with a nice tax subsidy.

If he's not rich enough to afford a private, individual insurance plan, well, Ryan was a full-fledged Ayn Randian Tea Party zealot, and the Tea Party zealots in the audience at the recent CNN/Tea Party presidential shindig were the ones cheering and hooting for society to "just let him die."

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals found the Obama health reform law's mandate to purchase insurance unconstitutional, and the Administration Monday chose not to ask the 11th Circuit to re-hear the case, indicating they were going to take their chances with the Supreme Court.

With a five-justice right-wing majority, the odds that the Supreme Court wouldn't crush Obama's law were somewhere between "none" and the proverbial snowball's chance.

"We know that the first step toward real, bipartisan advances in health policy must start with a full repeal of the president's partisan law," Ryan pontificated. "But the case for repeal must be matched with an even greater intensity by a case for replace..."

In the GOP's 2012 budget proposal, Ryan and Republicans schemed 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 seniors' health care costs.

Enraged constituents descended on GOP town hall meetings en masse last spring, demanding Republicans withdraw their Medicare couponization scheme. Ryan himself was besieged and required a police escort to escape a town hall with his skin, but smugly asserted voters had been "overwhelmingly supportive."

Far from contrition, Ryan now aimed to force everyone to buy private health insurance with limited "premium support."

While Medicare was the most efficient deliverer of health care, with administrative costs of just 3%, private, individual health plans were the least efficient, with administrative costs gobbling up 40% of premiums. While Medicare's overhead was limited to the cost of the government employees running it, private insurance overhead was an unlimited frontier of multi-million dollar executive compensation packages.

Wellpoint CEO Angela Braly pulled down $13 million in 2009 all by her lonesome. And, that didn't include any fully-loaded corporate jets Wellpoint might have kept warmed up on the tarmac for her. Talk about "administrative costs."

As with any other GOP plan, Ryan's health care plan was just another tax break for the rich, who get a discount off the private plan they were going to buy anyway. In a GOP version of a win-win, Ryan's health care plan was also a giveaway to the insurance industry, which gets all the money that would have gone to Medicare, Medicaid, and employee compensation without having to actually cover anyone for that amount.

As with any GOP version of a win-win, ordinary Americans lost-lost. Most ordinary Americans wouldn't be able to afford the lion's share of monthly premium costs their Ryancare coupons didn't cover. And Americans who didn't have enough income to get tax credits credited, or didn't have jobs at all, a not unlikely circumstance in the current environment, were, well...

Cue the cheering crowd at any GOP presidential debate.

Obama Betrayal Train Smashes Environment En Route To Axing Medicare, Social Security

The rate and breadth of President Barack Obama's betrayals accelerated to breakneck speed in an apparent bid to utterly destroy the Democratic brand and ingratiate himself with Republicans and plutocrats. Neither the GOP nor the ultra-wealthy were impressed, but Obama did succeed in discouraging Democratic supporters from coming out in 2012.

The Obama Administration barrelled ahead with plans to rubber-stamp the Keystone XL pipeline slated to transport raw Canadian tar sands oil to the Gulf of Mexico, so the toxic sludge could destroy the Ogallala Aquifer en route to turning colossal profits for oil moguls shipping the refined end product to overseas markets. Oil moguls cheered.

Then, the Obama Administration Friday declared it was suspending implementation of new ozone regulations, as stunned environmental activists reeled dumbfounded in slack-jawed astonishment. Oil moguls and coal magnates cheered.

Those betrayals, atop Obama's heinous laundry list of previous capitulations, paled in comparison to the Betrayer-in-Chief's schemes to gut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Obama planned to announce his greatest perfidy in the weeks following his grandstand Aug. 8 jobs speech.

Despite bipartisan opposition by activists, movie stars, Nebraska farmers and even a Republican governor, the Obama Administration moved relentlessly toward approving the Keystone XL pipeline scam. Obama and the oil moguls conspired to obliterate Canada's priceless Boreal forests, gouge uber-polluting tar sands from the lunarized landscape, and pipe toxic "dilbit" across six states to Port Arthur, TX refineries, where it can be processed for overseas markets.

More than 1,000 demonstrators protesting the pipeline boondoggle have been arrested as they gathered across the street from the White House over the past two weeks. Those arrested included actress Darryl Hannah, Maryland state senator Paul Pinsky, and the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, James Hanson, the Riverdale Park-University Park Patch reported.

Obama followed up coddling oil moguls and busting green activists with more coddling of oil moguls and coal magnates, while shunning the green activists who had naively helped put him into the Oval Office. Environmentalists rocked by Keystone XL reeled when Obama Friday ditched new air pollution rules designed to cut smog-forming pollutants.

Instead of cutting atmospheric ozone from 75 parts per billion to 60 parts per billion, Obama deemed what was good enough for George W. Bush, who had set the old standard, was good enough for America.

In his Republicanesque pro-pollution statement, Obama wheezed, "I have continued to underscore the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover."

Obama's recovering economy added exactly no jobs in August, tumbling equity markets around the globe.

If Obama wanted to create certainty for employers, he could simply announce any money corporations weren't spending to hire Americans and to invest in American plants and equipment would be taxed to within an inch of its bottom line. Then, his administration could launch an aggressive stimulus plan to rebuild the nation's $2 trillion worth of crumbling infrastructure, create a high-speed rail network, link the nation with broadband, and support advanced research to develop future technologies.

Instead, Obama's free pass to polluters only promised to create $100 billion worth of additional respiratory ailments annually, while handing polluters $90 billion worth of pollution abatement passes, according to The Hill.

But, all of this miserable perfidy was nothing compared to Obama's defacto plan to destroy the Democratic Party and hand Republicans in 2012 unfettered control of the White House and the Senate on top of the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court.

No sooner than Obama had coddled his air polluters, the White House Friday announced the Republicanizer-in-Chief would follow up his jobs speech with the launch of his Medicare-busting, Medicaid-gutting, Social Security-slashing deficit-reduction ploy, reported the Politico.

Obama's scheme to gut the nation's safety net entitlements promised to re-introduce means testing for Social Security, reducing benefits for the wealthy, so lobbyists and lawyers for the rich could get started on labelling FDR's landmark old-age pension plan as an unsupportable giveaway to worthless, shiftless poor who hadn't had the foresight to be born into the monied elite; to re-introduce incrementally rising age eligibility for Medicare, so the rich could taunt and gloat while millions went broke and died scrambling to bridge the gap between employer-sponsored health coverage and the entitlement to which they were rightfully entitled; and to refloat reducing Medicaid to block grants so industrial medical combines could abscond with the funds while abandoning millions to misery, pain and death.

Obama had been horny to plunder the Big Three entitlements during the recent Republican hostage-taking of the nation's debt ceiling, but Republicans balked at his $4 trillion deficit reduction vision. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) ostensibly backed away from Obama's grand vision because a few piddling tax tweaks were unacceptable to Republican sensibilities. In hindsight, Boehner, a seasoned Capitol Hill insider, might simply have had second thoughts about strapping himself to the Third Rail of Politics and waiting for the Express while a couple trillion volts fried his mortal carcass.

Without having to haul such timid baggage as Boehner with him, Obama could plunge ahead unfettered, and claim his biggest scalp, the Democratic Party itself.

Democrats commanded the high ground by doggedly defending Medicare against Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) unconscionable plan to hand all its money to insurance industry cronies while pawning off future seniors with worthless coupons. Democrats commanded the high ground by doggedly defending Social Security against reprehensible GOP plans to hand all its money to Wall Street cronies while abandoning future seniors to poverty and destitution. Democrats commanded the high ground by doggedly defending Medicaid against incessant Republican schemes to hand all its money to medical industry cronies while forsaking the poor and disabled.

Democrats commanded high ground no Republican could assail. Democrats commanded high ground vulnerable only to unprecedented perfidy and treachery: the perfidy and treachery of a single mortal conglomeration of tissue and blood and bile who had, for the sake of shameless self-aggrandizement, betrayed the grandmother who had loved and nurtured him in her small apartment; betrayed the prominent pastor who had taken him in and raised him high in the community from which he launched his political ambitions; betrayed the seasoned political veteran who had mentored and guided the rising junior Senator from Illinois; betrayed countless aides, advisers, and appointees who had daily toiled to serve a young President and a great nation; betrayed the voters, supporters, organizers, and pavement-pounding canvassers who had risen to heed the call for hope and change.

Betrayed the very soil, and water, and air of a nation and a planet.

The perfidy and treachery of Barack Obama, who, with a single speech in late September 2011, would surrender the high ground Democrats defended for seventy years, and open wide the gates for yet another Republican populist from Texas.

GOP Rallies Behind Perry In Push to Eliminate Social Security, Medicare

Republicans eager to eliminate Social Security and Medicare have feverishly rallied behind Texas' extremist cowboy Governor Rick Perry, a new Gallup poll revealed.

A week since tossing his ten-gallon hat into the GOP presidential ring, Perry has opened up a double-digit lead over his nearest rival, milquetoast moderate-by-Republican-standards Mitt Romney. The anti-government, pro-tycoon populist Perry led Romney 29% to 17% among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters mulling their choices for a 2012 standard bearer.

On the campaign trail, Perry, who championed abolishing Social Security in his recent book, Fed Up!, reiterated his vehement opposition to FDR's landmark safety net.

"Have you read my book, Fed Up?" Perry strutted before enraptured Waterloo, IA sycophants Aug. 14 in a video clip posted on the Daily Kos. "Get a copy of it and read it!" he said, in full Palin-snake-oil-selling mode.

Perry warmed up to his favorite pitch, crowing, "kids who are coming along, they know for a fact there's not going to be a Social Security and Medicare program!"

"We have to talk about how are we going to transfer over," Perry stumbled a moment, presumably catching himself before he said 'transfer over all the money in the Social Security Trust Funds to my fat cat K Street cronies who'll kick me back a big finder's fee,' and finished by just saying, "How are we going to make the transformation" to a medieval plutocracy where the elderly were abandoned to destitution and misery.

Conscious of rousing a public backlash, Perry spokesperson Ray Sullivan attempted to walk back his candidate's rabid anti-Social Security rant, and said Fed Up! "was a look back, not a look forward," written "as a review and critique of 50 years of federal excess, not in any way as a 2012 campaign blueprint or manifesto."

Republicans, however, appeared jubilant they had a champion who coveted dismantling Social Security.

The surging Perry had rapidly outstripped the GOP field. Aside from trouncing Romney 29% to 17%, he was ahead of Reps. Ron Paul's (R-TX) 13% and Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) 10%. With Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani in the mix, Perry still snagged 25%, with the Palin drawing 11% and Giuliani garnering 9%.

Gallup also found that Perry was in a dead heat with President Barack Obama, 47% to 47%. Obama, whose popularity has been plummeting, trailed Romney 46% to 48%, and led Bachmann by just four points.

Despite his handlers' best efforts, the indomitable Perry remained scathing in his denunciation of Social Security.

"Social Security is something we have been forced to accept for 70 years now," Perry wrote. He told the Daily Beast, "Whether it's Social Security, whether it's Medicaid, whether it's Medicare, you've got $115 trillion worth of unfunded liability in those three. They're bankrupt. They're a Ponzi scheme."

Never mind that all three programs were actually solvent, and would remain so ad infinitum if the wealthy would pay their fair share of taxes instead of fattening themselves on the unconscionable tax breaks and subsidies lavished on them by toadying GOP politicos.

With Perry as their favorite, Republicans were plunging ahead with their plans to eliminate Social Security and hand all its funds to Wall Street moguls eager to toss other people's money onto the roulette wheel of international equity markets while collecting their rake regardless of which slot the ball fell into. Despite furious public outrage, the GOP was doubling down on their plans to dismantle Medicare, hand all its money to insurance industry cronies, and pawn off future seniors with worthless discount coupons the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office revealed wouldn't cover a third of seniors' health care costs.

Republicans counted on repeating the "Social Security is broke" and "Medicare is broke" lies until gullible rubes coast to coast believed them. Republicans knew if square-jawed, photogenic white populists pounded their fists and lied loud enough and long enough, the rubes invariably believed them. Texas was lousy with evangelical revival meetings filled to the rafters.

Perry's even led his share of them.

In fact, Medicare was the most efficient deliverer of health care services in America, with administrative costs of 3%, compared to 5%-10% for large group insurance plans, 25%-27% for small group plans, and a whopping 40% for the kind of individual plans Republicans wanted future seniors to shell out for.

In fact, Social Security was solvent for another twenty years, and, with minor tweaks to payroll taxes, would remain so until starship troopers found a better solution at the other end of the galaxy.

Republicans, however, were greedy for the 10%, or 27%, or 40% "administrative fees" their insurance industry cronies could gorge themselves on. Republicans and their billionaire cronies were too greedy to pay the minuscule payroll tax tweaks that would fund Social Security until genetically-modified, bionically enhanced pigs rocketed across infinity and beyond.

Perry told the Daily Beast he believed Social Security and Medicare were unconstitutional.

"I don't think our Founding Fathers when they were putting the term 'general welfare' in there were thinking about a federally operated program of pensions nor a federally operated program of health care," Perry pontificated. "What they clearly said was that those were issues that the states need to address," although where Perry got that notion was, to say the least, unclear.

The interviewer asked Perry, "What did the Founding Fathers mean by 'general welfare?'"

Perry muttered, "I don't know if I'm going to sit here and parse down to what the Founding Fathers thought general welfare meant." Further questions were met by silence.

At a time when half of America's senior citizens couldn't support themselves and millions suffered poverty and destitution, a real American President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, told Congress, "If, as our Constitution tells us, our Federal Government was established...'to promote the general welfare,' it is our plain duty to provide for that security upon which welfare depends." Fifteen months later, on August 14, 1935, FDR signed the Social Security Act into law.

Nothing could be clearer than that.

As Debt Ceiling Struggles Peak, Obama Says, "Ich Bin Ein Republican"

Then, Benedict Arnold turned to Barack Obama and asked, "So, what are you in for?"

It's crunch time in the protracted, unconscionable hostage-taking of the normally pro forma raising of the nation's debt ceiling. Republicans have been using the federal government's need to raise its credit limit as an excuse to demand trillions of dollars in service cuts and tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy, and President Barack Obama has jumped on their bandwagon.

The federal government must raise its $14.3 trillion debt ceiling to continue funding operations, sending out Social Security and Medicare checks, and paying existing obligations. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has set an Aug. 2 deadline, after which the government will not be able to meet its obligations or roll over debt, sending the nation into default and global bond markets and financial systems into catastrophic cascade failure.

Meanwhile, slashing government spending, entitlements and eliminating stimulus will plunge the nation into a second recession.

During his address to the nation last weekend, Obama alarmingly embraced Republican boilerplate rhetoric on taxes, budgets and growth, saying, "Government has to start living within its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can't afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing, and give our businesses the confidence they need to grow and create jobs."

Then, he turned around and horrified Democrats by blithely announcing he would slash $500 billion from Medicare, $250-$350 billion from non-health entitlements, and blend the myriad formulas used to figure federal and state Medicaid contributions to slash $100 billion from that program.

Princeton Economist and Nobel Prize Laureate Paul Krugman was appalled, and wrote:

"No, government shouldn't budget the way families do; on the contrary, trying to balance the budget in times of economic distress is a recipe for deepening the slump. Spending cuts right now wouldn't "put the economy on sounder footing." They would reduce growth and raise unemployment. And last but not least, businesses aren't holding back because they lack confidence in government policies; they're holding back because they don't have enough customers - a problem that would be made worse, not better, by short-term spending cuts."

Possibly, the extended hostage situation has given Obama a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome. Or not. Obama has long enjoyed the support of Wall Street and corporate America, and now openly cleaves to the Republican agenda: more tax cuts for the wealthy, paid for by more service cuts on everyone else.

Obama wants to make the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, slash corporate tax rates, and appears determined to slash core entitlements to pay for those tax expenditures.

If, instead of Neville Chamberlain, the British had sent Barack Obama to parlay with Hitler, instead of the "Peace for our time" speech, you would have gotten the "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech.

Chamberlain's heinous weakness was roundly and rightly denounced as the worst kind of appeasement. But Chamberlain never strapped on a swastika armband and gave the Luftwaffe clearance to land at Croydon.

Democrats and Independents were not amused.

"I have talked to some of my colleagues," said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT),"including some you might not expect, who say if (the Administration) bring to the Senate a piece of crap that comes down heavy on working families and children and the elderly and they expect me to matter-of-factly vote for it, they'll have another thing coming."

Sanders vowed the other thing would be a filibuster.

"I do worry the White House is misreading the Senate," said namesake Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). "There has not been enough communication to alleviate that misreading."

Obama's scheme to cook Social Security's cost-of-living adjustments would slash benefits by an average of $1,000 per year over twenty years, Sanders warned, and pointed out that candidate Obama had promised not to touch the COLA formula.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) met privately with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden Friday morning, then addressed her caucus. Pelosi had been frozen out of budget talks during this Spring's government-shutdown hostage drama, and wasn't about to let that happen again.

"The (Democrats) cheered Pelosi when she said she was not going to back up," said Congressional Black Caucus leader Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO) of Pelosi's announcement that House Democrats had drawn a line in the sand on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

"I'm not really concerned about the political implications of entitlement cuts," Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) told The Politico. "I'm concerned about the real-life implications for hard-working Americans who depend on these programs."

"Social Security did not cause our deficit," agreed Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN). "It needs to be protected, not attacked so Republicans can preserve tax cuts for millionaires."

"Don't insult us," Pelosi told Obama budget director Jack Lew. "You don't know how to count."

"You need the Democratic Caucus to pass this," explained Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-VA), who figured Obama and his Republican cohort would need at least 100 Democratic Legislators to get any debt ceiling deal through the House. Pelosi and House Dems frozen out of this Spring's government-shutdown budget talks had been forced to vote for a deal they hadn't been consulted on just to bail out Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) when the Republican leader couldn't muster the 218 votes he needed. Obama and Boehner need Democratic votes again, since so many Republicans were so deluded they promised not to raise the debt ceiling under any conditions.

Tea Party brainiac and caucus leader Michele Bachmann (R-MN) vowed she "will not vote to increase the debt ceiling," a completely predictable position for someone who thinks nine-year-old John Quincy Adams freed the slaves.

But, even Michele Bachmann, or any other Republican, hadn't suggested cuts to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for a debt ceiling hike. Even those recidivist plutocrat-coddlers had been clever enough to steer clear of politics' third rails after poking a track with Rep. Paul Ryan's Medicare Couponization scheme and getting their hair frizzed by a sizzling jolt.

Obama thought up slashing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid all by his lonesome. With Friday's jobs report showing the economy adding a minuscule 18,000 jobs last month and unemployment rising to 9.2%, Obama thought up channelling Herbert Hoover as the way to prosperity all on his own.

"With all this money the private sector has," said Rep. John Larson (D-CT), referring to the nearly $2 trillion cash horde corporate America is already sitting on, "we keep hearing from the other side, 'We're going to cut our way to prosperity.' How has that helped this economy?"

It hasn't, and now that other side has Barack Hussein Obama.

Poll: Americans Favor Social Security, Medicare Over Deficit Reduction

Not surprisingly, a minority of wealthy Republicans is controlling the agenda on Capitol Hill, forcing President Barack Obama and Democrats to accept demands the vast majority of the American people oppose, a new poll revealed.

While House and Senate Republicans unconscionably hold the normally pro forma raising of the nation's debt ceiling hostage to their incessant demands for tax giveaways to their wealthy patrons, and covet plundering Social Security and Medicare in the name of deficit reduction, Americans by a two-to-one margin want Social Security and Medicare benefits to be left alone, a new Pew Research Center poll released Thursday discovered.

When asked which was more important, 60% of Americans said keeping Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are, while 32% said taking steps to reduce the deficit.

If anyone had any question who made up that 32% , the poll found that across all ages, income groups, and political affiliations, only Republicans making more than $75,000 a year said deficit reduction was more important than keeping Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are.

And, Republicans making $75,000 or much, much more a year are the very intransigent Republican hostage-takers who are driving the agenda on Capitol Hill. Once again, the lunatic Republican minority of selfish rich was driving the national agenda in a direction no one but themselves wanted to go.

Among those Republicans making $75,000 or much, much more, 63% said reducing the deficit was more important, and 29% said keeping Social Security and Medicare benefits the same was more important.

Not that wealth was the only driver for slashing entitlements while obsessing about debt. Among Democrats making $75,000 or more, 68% said keeping Social Security and Medicare benefits unchanged was more important, versus 28% who said reducing the deficit was more important.

Apparently, there was a difference between Democrats who were well off and Republicans who were well off. Apparently, Democrats had a sense of social responsibility and nationhood, while Republicans were callous, greedy, self-centered narcissists who could expect trouble with the Christmas Ghosts.

Among lower income groups, Democrats making $30,000 or less a year favored keeping benefits the same over reducing the deficit 72% to 22%. Surprisingly, among Republicans making $30,000 a year or less, keeping entitlement benefits the same trumped deficit reduction 62% to 33%.

Clearly, Republicans making $30,000 or less had voted against their own financial interests.

Even Republicans making $30,000-$75,000 favored preserving benefits over deficit reduction by 53% to 38%.

When divided into age groups, younger Americans tended to favor deficit reduction a bit more, but party affiliation was still more important. Democrats 18-34 said they favored preserving benefits over deficit reduction 63% to 34%, a gap that widened as the group aged, until those aged 65 and over favored preserving benefits over deficit reduction 81% to 7%.

Young Republicans 18-34, favored preserving benefits over deficit reduction 48% to 46%. By the time they got to age 35-49, they'd given up any pretense of social responsibility, entered full ogrehood, and favored deficit reduction 51% to 43%, probably figuring they were well on their way up the corporate ladder with a nice big house, a Mercedes, and a place in Aspen. Those numbers slipped by age 50-64 to favoring benefits 48% to 42%, as their prospects for a big killing dimmed, their big house was underwater, and they'd blown their retirement portfolio on that Aspen fiasco. By the time they were 65 and over, 52% favored preserving benefits, versus 35%, who apparently had accumulated fat trust funds and lacked any moral compass when considering the masses whose backs they'd run roughshod over to secure their cushy lifestyle.

Despite months of Republican deficit reduction harangues continuously highlighted on Fox News and the corporate media, the poll found support for preserving entitlement benefits had only eroded to 60% today from 70% in 1995, and support for deficit reduction had only risen to 32% today from 24% in 1995.

With that much media hysteria for so long on a subject, Madison Avenue should have been able to convince everyone in America to buy multiples of any unspeakably ugly thing you could imagine at exorbitant prices. Nehru jackets. Anything with Hanna Montana on it.

Moreover, 61% of Americans said those on Medicare already paid enough for their benefits, while 31% said they should pay more. Undoubtedly, that 31% included Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), who schemed to dismantle Medicare, hand all its money to insurance company cronies, and force seniors to pay retail for private insurance using vouchers the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office calculated wouldn't cover even a third of the cost of premiums, deductibles. co-pays and other expenses.

58% of Americans said low-income persons shouldn't have their Medicaid benefits taken away, and yup, 37% said low-income persons should be left to rot and die horribly and miserably without any health care benefits at all. Anyone unsure who, exactly, comprised that 37% just hasn't been paying attention.

Thus, the vast majority of Americans have to hope that President Barack Obama isn't one of those 27% of Democrats aged 35-49 who favored deficit reduction over maintaining entitlement benefits. According to his birth certificate, long form or short, the President turns 50 on August 4, and the likelihood he'd favor deficit reduction over maintaining benefits drops to 16% versus 77%. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said America hits its debt ceiling and won't be able to fund operations Aug. 2.

Hopefully, the President won't make a decision he'll come to regret four weeks from now.

Ryan, Republicans Harangue Obama for Fighting GOP Medicare-Busting

House Republicans are so close to completely destroying America they can taste it, and they spent much of their Wednesday meeting with President Barack Obama taunting and tormenting the Chief Executive for resisting their efforts to dismantle Medicare.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), architect of the nefarious GOP scheme to plunder Medicare on behalf of the insurance industry and pawn off seniors with a handful of worthless vouchers, led the charge.

"As far as Medicare is concerned, we wanted to make sure the President understood the facts about the proposal so he doesn't continue to mischaracterize it," Ryan sneered.

One Republican fact Ryan didn't mention was that John Abarr, an avowed Ku Klux Klan extremist, may soon be reinforcing the GOP ranks, as he announced he would be running for the open Montana House seat that belonged to Denny Rehberg (R-MT).

Abarr said that he'd been "inspired" to run by Obama's election. It was not known whether Abarr planned to bring any sporting goods or ranching tools into future meetings with the President, and how many of Ryan's cohort would help hold the President down.

Republicans hoped that holding hostage the nation's ability to issue bonds to fund operations and pay off maturing obligations would force the Administration to cave on Medicare and Social Security, which Republicans want to plunder for their cronies, and slash trillions in other services, which Republicans want for tax subsidies, giveaways and kickbacks for their cronies.

Obama had been actively warning people that Ryan and the Republicans' 2012 budget plan not only slashed income taxes for the wealthiest Americans another 10%, but aimed to dismantle Medicare, which pays seniors' doctor and hospital bills, and replace it with a scheme that forces future seniors to buy private insurance with the help of "premium support" - which Republicans refuse to characterize as "vouchers" - that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office revealed would not even cover a third of the cost of premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and other expenses. Republicans howled that informing voters of GOP perfidy was "demagoguery."

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), said GOP leaders at the meeting demanded the President, "stop saying that we don't have the best interests of the country at heart."

Cantor, Ryan, and the rest of their infernal cabal apparently tried to browbeat the President into propagating Republican lies, but Obama held firm. Ever the diplomat, the President told Republicans, "The demagoguery comes from both sides." Well, not really, but Obama is always trying to reach out to even the most intransigent of villains.

Ryan and the GOP cohorts' apparent battle plan is to repeatedly, incessantly, relentlessly characterize any warnings about Ryan's Medicare Couponization scam as lies, even though they can never explain what it is about those warnings that are untrue. Instead, Republicans, whose deep pockets can buy the best ad men and spinmeisters Madison Avenue has to offer, have whipped up the slick soundbite "Mediscare" to denigrate any effort to inform people of the GOP's scheme to pillage Medicare and hand all its money to the profiteering insurance juggernaut.

Reputable analysts have joined the chorus declaring that not only does Ryan's plan abolish Medicare, it does so without even accomplishing the balanced budget Republicans continuously howl for. The main aim of Ryan's Republican budget is, as always, to hand ever larger mountains of free cash to the wealthy while brutalizing every other American.

Princeton Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman recently wrote:

"Mr. Ryan may claim...he's facing a backlash because his opponents are lying about his proposals. But the reality is that the Ryan plan is turning into a political disaster for Republicans, not because the plan's critics are lying about it, but because they're describing it accurately." 

Krugman, upon carefully examining Ryan's budget, confirms Ryan would do away with Medicare and replace it with vouchers, or coupons, or whatever Republicans want to call them, that would leave, "many if not most older Americans unable to afford essential care."

Republicans themselves are keen to promote the notion that only the wealthiest Americans, who can pay cash on the barrel head, should be entitled to health care. Ryan henchman Rob Woodall (R-GA) taunted a constituent who asked about Medicare with, "You want the government to take care of you? ...When do I decide to take care of me?"

Ryan is an Ayn Rand acolyte who, like Rand, believes that a person's own happiness is the only purpose of life, that selfishness is a virtue, and altruism is to be condemned. One look at Ryan's, and Woodall's and shirtless photo stalker Chris Lee's smug, coiffed, tinted, frat-boy looks, and one can immediately imagine how Rand's insipid ramblings might enthrall them.

Of course the likes of Ryan and Woodall and Lee, ever vigilant for any opportunity to toady up to their wealthy patrons, would come up with a plan that would not only leave the vast majority of Americans unable to obtain critical medical care, but would force Americans to empty their bank accounts and sell their assets in a desperate bid to cover deductibles and uncovered expenses before succumbing - impoverished, miserable and in horrible agony - to anguish and death as their loved ones looked on helplessly.

One can almost hear Ryan feverishly pitching his scheme to his industry masters: "Not only that, those losers'll have to sell everything they have first! Then, we'll get it all! We'll get it all!" (Cue maniacal evil villain laughter).

Democrats' health care reforms pared, over time, $500 million from the George W. Bush Medicare Advantage boondoggle that handed a big chunk of the Medicare pie to the same insurance industry cronies Republicans now want to hand the whole Medicare pie to. Medicare Advantage imposed enormous costs on taxpayers, as it pumped mountains of cash directly to billionaire industry moguls for private jets, private yachts and private portfolio packages. But, as Democrats tried to rein in those excesses, Republicans, in true demagoguery, screamed, "Death Panels! Birth Certificate!"

The difference now is that the Republican plan really does condemn the vast majority of Americans to a future without critical medical care. Republicans don't need to set up Death Panels, because, in their system, you and everyone you know dies horribly, painfully and completely destitute, while Ryan and his rich cronies taunt you and torment you as they guzzle champagne and scarf down caviar bought with your money.

Senate Rejects Ryan Medicare Buster In Near Party-Line Vote

Forty Senate Republicans stumbled through the smoking wreckage of New York's 26th Congressional District election, crawled over ruined ambitions and vanished visions of grandeur, and fell on their swords by voting in favor of Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) disgraced and rejected House scheme to plunder Medicare, hand its money to the GOP's insurance industry cronies, and pawn off future seniors with vouchers that won't cover even a third of the cost of the private insurance premiums, deductibles, and other expenses the plan would force the seniors to incur.

The smoke had barely begun to clear from the western New York battlefield where the GOP had poured $3.4 million and thrown in their best and most powerful troops, only to suffer a crushing and humiliating defeat. Speaker John Boehner had charged across the western New York horizon, bellowing defiance. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor had gone over the top, exhorting his troops. Karl Rove had sent some of his best money moguls. It had all been for naught. A petite Erie County Clerk who'd spent her days helping local folks get their driver's licenses had faced down the thundering hordes of corporate mercenaries and plutocrat phalanxes, and had dealt the Republican juggernaut a stunning blow.

It was Kathy Hochuls who'd earned the (D-NY) notation after her name, but it was the people of New York's 26th Congressional District who had drawn the line in the sand, and had told the GOP no one would plunder Medicare on behalf of their plutocrat cronies today. Those stolid citizens had waited in the chill morning air for their polling places to open, so they could turn back the Republican tide that threatened to bankrupt and abandon them to pain, misery and horrific death in their declining years.

And, in the gray dawn that followed, forty Republican Senators, no wiser for the previous day's slaughter, charged across the Senate floor and whithered before a stolid Democratic line. Ryan's House budget, built around tax giveaways to the rich and slashing Medicare out of existence, went down to a 57-40 defeat, and every Republican Senator save Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), Scott Brown (R-MA), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Rand Paul (R-KY) would carry the gaping shame of their vote forever afterward into whatever political purgatory awaited them and the 235 Congressional Reps who had gone before them.

Snide Paul Ryan, the narcissistic sociopath who believed anyone who couldn't afford to pay cash on the barrel head for health care didn't deserve to live, had the audacity to whine on MSNBC's Morning Joe that Democrats were "shamelessly demagoguing and distorting" his plan to eliminate Medicare and force future seniors into the private insurance market with a handful of worthless discount coupons.

Apparently, to Ryan, eliminating Medicare wasn't about the hundreds of millions of Americans who would be left destitute and bereft of medical attention because they couldn't pay the tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket his plan demanded of future seniors. Apparently, to Ryan, eliminating Medicare was about how clever and handsome and celebrated Paul Ryan was, and how grateful insurance corporations would shower him and his cohort with fawning praise and lavish gifts and junkets.

Apparently, to Ryan, eliminating Medicare wasn't about the hundreds of millions of Americans who had worked all their lives and paid their taxes in a system built around employer-based health insurance that had no contingencies for caring for those too old and infirm to work, save for Medicare. Apparently, to Ryan, eliminating Medicare was about how everyone in America would chant his name and willingly, happily suffer any pain and any misery because he, Paul Ryan, the transcendent vision of ideal chiseled manhood and virility, had told them they were disgusting losers who didn't deserve medical care because they hadn't lied, cheated and stolen their way to personal fortune when they'd had the chance.

Shameless demagoguery? Ryan's henchman Rep. Rob Woodall (R-GA) said it best when he told a constituent worried about losing Medicare, sneeringly, "You want the government to take care of you...My question is, 'When do I decide I'm going to take care of myself?'" Woodall told his constituent to go to Canada if she wanted universal health care, but America was better because, "There aren't many places to find the freedom to succeed by the sweat of your brow."

That Woodall's plutocrat overlords succeeded by the sweat of others' brows, and that those brows were now to be abandoned to the dung heap, troubled Woodall or Ryan or Cantor or any of the Republican horde not at all. Woodall and Ryan and their ilk figure to "take care of themselves" by delivering fatter tax windfalls to their Masters, and don't care who has to die toward that end, except that they die grateful for the chance to serve His Woodallness and His Ryanhood.

Demogoguing? Recall that the 26th Congressional District had been Ryan's and Woodall's henchman Chris Lee's seat. Chris Lee, the shameless narcissist who'd posed shirtless before his mirror, preening and flexing his muscles, certain that a woman he'd pathetically found on Craigslist would swoon at the sight of his overwhelming naked magnificence. Click here and take a good look. I'll wait.

Shameless narcissist Chris Lee's self-portrait is at once the essence and final damnation of the self-possessed, self-absorbed, self-declared flower of the Me Generation that marches from hair salon to tanning booth to cosmetic surgeon with stacks of GQ and Cosmo back issues saying, nip me, tuck me, botox me, perm me, highlight me to look like the prissy trust fund frat boy I am or ought by right of God to be.

Shameless narcissist Paul Ryan, so intellectually bankrupt he's impressed by Atlas Shrugged, obsessively seeking in its barren pages meaningless validation of his self-serving, self-idolizing, self-aggrandizing vision to sacrifice the lives and well-being of millions of his own countrymen and women for no reason but to endow history's richest, most powerful misers with ever greater tax subsidies and to reap whatever rewards his perfidy wins him.

It is in Woodall's words that we can see the essense of these Stepford Republicans. Only in the barren, intellectually-, socially-, emotionally-bankrupt minds of Lee and Ryan and Woodall and Palin and Bachmann and all the rest of the coiffed, blow-dried, tinted, tanned, nipped, tucked, sculpted cookie-cutter living undead Stepford Republican zombies can the glory, the grandeur, the vision, the hope, the beauty, and the promise of America be reduced to just another place to make money.

Hochul's Special NY Election Win Sends GOP Medicare Busters Reeling

Riding a tide of unprecedented voter turnout, virtual unknown Kathy Hochul, an Erie County Clerk, scored a stunning upset victory over all comers in a race widely seen as a referendum on Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) Medicare-busting Republican 2012 budget proposal.

The Associated Press called the election for Hochul an hour after the polls closed, when, with 71% of precincts reporting, Hochul led Corwin 48% to 42%. The race had been complicated by the presence of failed GOP contender and Tea Party darling Jack Davis, who garnered 8% of the vote.

The special election to fill New York's 26th Congressional District seat, formerly held by disgraced GOP Rep. Chris Lee of shirtless shower photo infamy, had been a yawner until the overwhelmingly solid Republican enclave's supposed shoo-in candidate, Jane L. Corwin, happened to mention she supported Ryan's plan to eliminate Medicare.

After that, things deteriorated quickly for former Wall Street denizen and multi-millionaire Corwin. Hochul pounced on Corwin's Medicare-busting stance and never let go. In a district that had been safely held by Republicans for some forty years and had voted for John McCain in 2008, Hochul went from unknown to well known, and inexorably closed the gap until she finally overtook Corwin and won going away.

Corwin never even had to take her top off.

Ryan's Medicare plan provided all the naked avarice Democrats needed. GOP heavy-hitters John Boehner (R-OH) and Eric Cantor (R-VA) ventured to western New York state to bolster Corwin's chances, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove's pals, and other well-heeled party factors pumped $3.4 million into Corwin's cause to no avail. Eventually, Corwin began sidling away from Ryan's Medicare-busting, saying she would favor changes to Ryan's plan, but it was too late. The Ryan plan sunk Corwin.

Meanwhile, Olympia Snowe (R-ME) became the fourth Senate Republican to back away from the Ryan plan. She announced she would not vote for the House 2012 Budget when Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) brings it up for a Senate vote. Snowe joined fellow Maine Senator Susan Collins in opposing the scheme.

In recent weeks, GOP hopefuls Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump, Mitch Daniels, Jeb Bush, Haley Barbour and others have backed away from Presidential runs, although none have cited being saddled with the Ryan Medicare voucherization plan as a defacto running mate.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) has been telling anyone who'll listen that he'd like to see Ryan himself run for President in 2012, albeit without a hint of sarcasm. "What Paul Ryan is about is real leadership," Cantor said. As House Budget Committee Chair, Ryan was the architect of the Republicans' vilified 2012 Budget, which endows the wealthiest Americans with another 10% tax break while slashing trillions in vital spending, and features the infamous voucherization of Medicare. Ryan's scheme would hand all of Medicare's money to insurance industry cronies, and force future seniors to buy private insurance with vouchers the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office figures won't cover a third of the cost of premiums, deductibles, co-pays and other expenses.

Upon discovering the Republicans' ignominy, the overwhelming majority of Americans disdained emptying their bank accounts in a vain effort to acquire health care for their sunset years, then dying painfully and miserably in destitution as their loved ones looked on in anguish and horror. Scores of Americans descended on Republican town hall meetings last month to let their tea party legislators know in no uncertain terms what they thought of Ryan voucherization.

"Overwhelmingly supportive," Ryan spun the Medicare onslaught despite needing a police escort to negotiate the gauntlet of screaming constituents surrounding one town hall gathering. Ryan apparently couldn't believe people wouldn't be happy to die horribly and miserably for the greater glory of Paul Ryan. Hitler had the same beef with the troops he sent to the Russian Front.

If that was the greeting Ryan got on his own turf, one had to wonder at Cantor's pushing his golden boy onto the Presidential campaign trail. Ryan didn't even relish running for an open Wisconsin Senate seat, fergawdsake. Perhaps Cantor sees Ryan as a threat to his own power, either as a rival or an embarrassment, and wants to see Ryan to really go down in flames.

The Medicare debacle has become the hardened tip of the spear skewering Republicans.

Last week, Jacksonville, FL elected its first Democratic mayor since about the time dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Alvin Brown shocked the GOP establishment by becoming the solidly Republican city's first-ever African American Mayor May 18. Brown, a moderate Democrat, won with a strong ground game, the help of old Clinton Administration hands, and local Republican businessmen.

But, the turning point might have come when Florida's Republican Governor Rick Scott endorsed Brown's opponent, Mike Hogan. It turned out that Scott wasn't Hogan's hero. Folks in Florida were peeved at their Gov for slashing education and turning away billions in federal funding for high speed rail. Despite having both a "Rick" and a "Scott" in his name, the governor's endorsement didn't help Hogan, and Jacksonville anointed its first black Democratic mayor.

In Washington, another Scott, this one Brown, stated that he, too, wouldn't be backing Ryan's plan when it comes up for a Senate vote. Brown (R-MA) said, "While I applaud Ryan for getting the conversation started, I cannot support his specific plan."

Rand Paul (R-KY) also found that he couldn't support the Ryan plan, although Paul had the convenient uber-right-wing excuse that Ryan's plan hadn't gone far enough. Paul claimed he couldn't support the Ryan budget because it didn't cut enough from the federal budget. Perhaps he might reconsider if Ryan promised to put Bush Administration torture master John Yoo in charge of Medicare reform.

You knew it was going to be long day for Republicans when the Corwin campaign, possibly alarmed that hundreds of people were waiting since early morning to vote at their polling places, asked a judge Tuesday afternoon for a court order barring certification of the election results pending a show-cause hearing later in the week. The judge impounded all voting equipment and proscribed canvassing paper ballots.

The Corwin campaign insisted such actions were "very typical" in close elections. While Republicans routinely sequester themselves behind locked doors with all the ballots until they come up with a result they like, it's suspicious for anyone to start complaining about the outcome before the voting.

"We want to make sure that every legal vote is counted fairly and accurately," Corwin campaign lackey Chris Grant said. New York residents had better keep a close eye on the GOP minions, as the only "legal" votes Republicans tend to recognize are the ones for their candidate.

Republicans Committed to Couponizing Medicare: Just Ask Newt

Just because Republicans won't have Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) Medicare-busting couponization plan in the House Ways and Means Committee's version of their 2012 Budget, don't think the the GOP is backing off their dream of pilfering all of Medicare's money, handing it to their insurance company cronies and ditching future seniors with a handful of worthless vouchers.

Just ask poor old Newt Gingrich, former GOP House Speaker, serial philanderer, Tiffany and Co. platinum preferred customer and, once, the world's most powerful amphibian. Newt went on Meet the Press Sunday to get his 2012 Presidential bid off to a rousing start, and, possibly conscious of the fact that 84% of Americans think Ryanizing Medicare is slightly worse than blowing your brains out while electrocuting yourself in a bathtub filled with piranhas, mentioned that he might not be all for the GOP darling's senior death march scheme.

Gingrich said he thought Ryan's plan was "too radical," and "too big a jump." Ryan's plan would replace Medicare, which pays doctors and hospitals for medical care, with vouchers future seniors would use toward the purchase of private insurance. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office figures Ryan's coupons wouldn't cover a third of the cost of premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and other expenses. Newt, known for shooting from the hip, apparently did a little arithmetic, figured out most seniors wouldn't be able to pay cash for two-thirds of their medical needs, and worked out what being old, sick, and broke without a doctor added up to. He told Meet the Press, "I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering."

Now, Newt is trying to get the number of the truck that flattened him on the interstate.

Newt has had to crawl, or slither, or whatever it is Newts do, on his knees to the Great Ryan and beg His forgiveness. "I made a mistake," a chastened Gingrich told Fox News.

Newt cheated on his wife, repeatedly, excused himself for patriotic reasons, realized that was a bit much even for Newt, ran up a half mil bill at Tiffany's, and now he's made a mistake.

This shows just how committed the GOP is to plundering Medicare. If Republicans were backing off Ryanizing Medicare, they wouldn't be going Mad Max on any errant salamander trundling across a two-lane blacktop after questioning whether cutting future seniors off from medical care was the best idea ever.

"The fact is, I have supported what Ryan's trying to do on the budget," Gingrich backpedaled to Fox.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Gingrich's comments were, "a tremendous misspeak."

While pondering the grammatical stiltedness of contemporary Republican leaders, one has to wonder what sort of field the GOP is going to field for the 2012 presidential plebiscite. The ever amusingly tousle-haired "The" Donald Trump has decided being a billionaire reality TV-star is much more fun than being leader of the free world. Haley Barbour went back to his dinner, and Jeb Bush, revealing a remarkable lack of confidence in his party's current chances, has decided to wait 'till 2016. Mike Huckabee explained he wasn't running for anatomical reasons, misplacing his heart.

Now, it's clear that anybody who does run will have to carry the banner of Ryan's Medicare voucherization program. Whether it's Tim Pawlenty or Mitch Daniels, he will have to stand up in front of the American people and tell them how great it will be to get old without Medicare, and how much fun it will be to die horribly and miserably because they can't afford the 68% of health care costs Ryan's coupons won't cover. Whether it's Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann, she'll have to sit before network news cameras and say Democrats are just trying to scare folks by making the ridiculous claim that emptying your bank account in a desperate bid for medical care, then facing bankruptcy, ruin, pain, and death while agonized loved ones look on helplessly is somehow frightening.

Paul Ryan is an Ayn Rand sycophant who believes society owes nothing to losers who hadn't lied, cheated, and stolen their way to personal fortune when they had the chance. With his Medicare giveaway to insurance companies and voucherization as the cornerstone of the 2012 GOP Presidential platform, and the vast majority of the electorate fervently opposed to same, Republicans have pretty much signalled their election campaign must be nothing more than some sort of ignoble coup d'etat attempt. No one except the GOP brain trust wants to gut Medicare so billionaires can keep getting unlimited tax subsidies. If Barack Obama is going to be the thin blue line standing between seniors and death without health care, Republicans must figure they're going to gain the White House by some means other than the ballot box.

Unless that ballot box was built by Diebold.
     

Cracks in GOP Phalanx Appear on Ryan Medicare Couponization

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) just might start feeling like a bridesmaid as GOP heavy hitters start talking about not being wedded to his 2012 Budget proposal. Ryan, after all, is Chairman of the House Budget Committee, and the Budget is his thing. After initial hoopla from folks who should know better, some folks who did know better took a look at Ryan's ramblings, and pronounced them to be "Ludicrous and Cruel."

Then came polling that showed Ryan's budget was about as popular as a banjo hitter coming to bat with the bases loaded and the game on the line in the bottom of the ninth. Exactly that popular, in fact, as 78% opposed cutting Medicare to balance the budget, and 84% opposed canning Medicare in favor of a voucher program. In big league baseball, a .200 batting average, or 20%, is considered the demarcation of offensive futility. Hall of Famer George Brett popularized the "Mendoza Line," named for a particularly dreadful hitter.

As the Ryan plan's popularity scuffled around the Mendoza Line, a festive atmosphere engulfed GOP town hall meetings across America during Congress' spring break. Camera phones posted plenty of You Tube moments with Republican pols hemming and hawing in front of jeering crowds.

Just about that time, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) became the first groom to discreetly back a step or two away from the altar.

"It's Paul (Ryan)'s idea. Now other people have other ideas," Boehner mumbled and stumbled. "I'm not wedded to one single idea." Boehner had earlier stated that he "fully supports Paul Ryan's budget." This of course, was before the bill flopped, and Boehner flipped.

Apparently 84% of Americans had a great many ideas about Ryan's plans. Ryan's idea would dismantle Medicare, hand its money to insurance company cronies, and pawn off seniors with coupons that wouldn't cover a third of their health care costs, while giving the richest Americans another 10% tax break.

The Ryan plan would, for people presently under 55, replace Medicare, which pays doctors for services, with vouchers the future seniors would use toward the purchase of private insurance. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office calculated by 2030, Ryan's coupons wouldn't cover a third of what seniors would need to shell out for premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and other expenses.

GOP presidential aspirant-in-waiting Michele Bachmann (R-MN) then became a bride sidling a step or two away from the altar. "One position that I'm concerned about is shifting the cost burden to senior citizens," she told Fox News Sunday. She explained her vote for the Ryan budget with a not very graceful, "They are not pieces of legislation. They are aspirational documents."

The Ryan proposal was a bill, Michele, and a bill is a piece of legislation. Please cue that tape from "Schoolhouse Rock." Now, the Cub Scout's creed is an aspirational document. Unless you're President Barack Obama, for whom the Nobel Peace Prize was an aspirational document. But as far as aspirational documents go, most folks should start small and work their way up.

Some uncharitably consider Michele Bachmann as just a pretty face, if you like that nipped, tucked, botoxed faux-thirty Voldemort-with-a-nose look.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) was smart enough to feign a headache and avoided going to the church altogether. She announced she wouldn't support the Ryan Couponization Budget weeks ago.

Then, former New York Lt. Gov.Betsy McCaughey, the Medicare-buster and anti-health care activist riding point for Ryan, was denounced by the authors of studies McCaughey touted as proving how Ryan's scheme guaranteed sunshine and roses for all. McCaughey had written editorials in several prominent periodicals pushing elder-genocide as a good thing, but the authors of studies she cited begged to disagree.

McCaughey also denegrated the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office as "deceptive." She found exception to findings that seniors would end up having to sell all their earthly belongings and empty their bank accounts before dying horribly and miserably while loved ones looked on helplessly in anguish because the Ryan coupons would only cover 68% of costs. "It's time for Congress to find a new source of honest, independant research" she said. She didn't mention Fox News by name.

Even among Republicans, trashing the Congressional Budget Office is a bit unseemly. At this rate, Ryan might find himself standing around the altar wondering where everyone was. Ryan should start worrying whether fellow Republicans might start blaming President Obama for tricking them into voting for the Ryan bill just make them look bad.

Plutocracy in Action: Despite Polls, GOP Forges Ahead With Medicare-Busting

In a nation that's supposed to be a democracy, 78% would seem like a fairly major majority. After all, what big league ballplayer would want his batting average stuck around .220? Yet, Republicans figure 22% represents a majority, and are surging forward with their plot to dismantle Medicare, hand the Medicare money to their well-heeled insurance company cronies, and pawn off future seniors with coupons that won't cover a third of their health care costs.

A recent Washington Post/ABC News Poll revealed 78% of Americans oppose cutting Medicare to help balance the federal budget. Nevertheless, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), architect of the GOP scheme to gut Medicare while handing the richest Americans another 10% tax break, said his constituents were "Overwhelmingly supportive" of his budget plot.

"Oh, they are overwhelmingly supportive. Have you actually attended these meetings?" Ryan crowed. "The crowds are overwhelmingly supportive."  During the Congress' spring break, Ryan had been booed at town hall meetings, and once had to be escorted by police to avoid hostile demonstrators.

In drawing his conclusion, it was not known whether it was because Ryan had keep his eyes closed with his fingers in his ears, or if the 22% approving gutting Medicare was the only constituency Ryan cared about.

Ryan's staff quickly highlighted a standing ovation at one town hall meeting as proof of Ryan's tsunami of support. It was not immediately known whether they'd thanked their parents for attending.

The same WaPo/ABC News poll found 72% approved raising taxes on Americans making $250,000 or more, as President Barack Obama had proposed.

This polling found 84% of Americans opposed converting Medicare to a voucher program. Ryan's scheme would nix Medicare for folks under 55. When they reach retirement, instead of getting Medicare, which pays doctors and hospitals for services provided to seniors, they would get vouchers they could use toward the purchase of private insurance. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office figures by 2030, those coupons, probably glossy affairs featuring Paul Ryan's smiling mug, would only cover 32% of the cost of premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and other expenses. Rich people would love them. They were going to pay cash at exclusive hospital resorts anyway, so a 30% off coupon for nips and tucks and implants and nefarious secret organ and body fluid transfers from screaming kidnapped 12-year-olds sounds pretty good.

For the rest of Americans, having to pay 68% of health care costs out of pocket sounds pretty much like selling your house, emptying your bank account, then, when the money runs out, dying horribly and miserably as anguished loved ones look on helplessly.

You can see why 22% of Americans are "overwhelmingly supportive" of Ryan's plan. That proportion's just about the combined total of the ultra-rich, wannabes and toadies, and brain-sucking zombie vampires.

Republicans, the party of the ultra-rich, wannabes and toadies, and brain-sucking zombie vampires, are lining up squarely behind Ryan. Except Susan Collins (R-ME), who draws the line at brain-sucking zombie vampires.

While 72% support higher taxes on the rich, approval for Obama's handling of the economy remained only plurality-ish. This may be an indication that Americans want the rich to pay more than just the amount repealing the Bush-era tax cuts, as Obama proposed, would yield. Americans would be right on that score. The rich need to pay much more to balance the federal budget, which is out of whack primarily because they've been dodging paying their fair share for thirty years and have accumulated a truly overwhelming proportion of America's wealth. 20% of Americans own 84% of all the wealth in the country.

Ryan must mean his overwhelming support is in the form of the dollars his well-heeled overlords can wield.

What America really needs is the kind of progressive income tax schedule that shifts the burden of running the nation from the poorest 80% of Americans, the bottom half of which only splits a mere three-tenths of one per cent of the nation's wealth to begin with, to the top tiers where all the money is (see sidebar).

Lacking a progressive income tax, seeing how the richest 400 Americans have as much as the lowest half of Americans, perhaps we should put those 400 folks on a new reality show, Survivor Billionaires. Every week, Americans could vote somebody off the island (or, actually, onto an island, which would be barren, icy, and surrounded by sharks) and the nation could take over all their wealth, since they stole it from us in tax giveaways, leveraged buyouts, asset liquidations, payroll downsizing, off-shoring, outsourcing, and all manner of funny money Wall Street accounting schemes.

That way, Americans could get to fire Donald Trump, instead of the other way around.

Florida Medicaid Busters Assert GOP Health Care Priorities: Cronies First, Patients Last

While an alarmed citizenry stormed GOP town hall meetings to vent their anger over Republican plans to dismantle Medicare, hand its money to insurers, and pawn off future seniors with coupons that won't cover a third of their health care costs, Florida moved ahead with a Medicaid plot that underscored the Republicans' health care priorities: industry cronies first, patients last.

In fact, Florida's new Republican Governor Rick Scott isn't just a health industry crony, he's the multi-millionaire former head of a hospital chain that had to pay $1.7 billion-with-a-"B" in criminal and civil fines for defrauding Medicare. Scott stepped down as head of Columbia/HCA in 1997 while the FBI was crawling all over the company's books.

Now Scott and Florida's GOP-led legislature are poised to dismantle the state's Medicaid system. Just as Republicans on Capitol Hill aim to hand Medicare's money to insurers, Republicans in Florida aim to hand the state's Medicaid money directly to HMOs. Just as Republicans on Capitol Hill scheme to change Medicare from a system that pays doctors for services to a system that pads insurance company profits, Republicans in Florida scheme to change Medicaid from a system that pays doctors for services to a system that fattens HMOs.

And, just as Beltway Republicans covet tossing future seniors into the retail market to buy whatever insurance they can afford with the pittance of "premium assistance" they'll get, Florida Republicans covet tossing their poor, elderly and disabled into accepting whatever the HMOs offer for the Medicaid subsidy the state hands over.

Over the last decade, Florida's Medicaid bill has ballooned from $9 billion to $21 billion. State Senator Joe Negron, author of one of the GOP bills trundling through the legislature, whined that "the Medicaid system is irretrievably broken." The state Senate was set to vote on his bill Friday, and the state House had already passed its version earlier. "We were not going to kick the can down the road another year," Negron crowed.

Horror stories about the state's new-style Medicaid's pilot program told of poor and disabled patients deprived of doctors and care as their new HMO scuttled needed services to make their state subsidies pay. Instead of paying doctors for services to patients, the Florida scheme forces patients into authorized for-profit HMOs that'll get state money directly and decide how much of it will be spent on patient care and how much of it will be spent on private jets, private yachts, and very private dancers.

Did I mention that Rick Scott made millions heading a company the FBI nailed for defrauding Medicare?

Victims of Florida's Medicaid pilot program who had been receiving care for chronic illnesses found themselves shunted off to HMOs that didn't offer the services they needed. They found that the new HMOs offered few services and specialists, and that their doctors were dropping out of the program because of red tape and low pay.

Republicans justified all this cruelty by screaming about costs.

In fact, Americans pay more than twice as much per person for health care than any other industrialized nation, but suffers among the lowest life expectancies and most miserable infant mortality rates. America's health care system is broken not because Medicare and Medicaid are too expensive, but because the health care system is cobbled together from so many profit centers geared to rake in as much cash as possible for greedy scammers.

Did I mention Rick Scott made millions heading a company the FBI nailed for defrauding Medicare?

In America, administrative costs eat up a huge chunk of health care spending. 5%-10% of what big companies pay to insure their employees goes toward administrative costs. 25%-27% of what small companies fork out goes toward administrative costs, and a whopping 40% of individual insurance plans goes toward administrative costs. No wonder Republicans want future seniors in the individual insurance market.

Medicare, on the other hand, only uses 3% of the money it gets for administrative costs. Rick Scott would have been hard pressed to become a millionaire working for Medicare.

America also spends about $30 billion a year to correct mistakes. And, that doesn't even count the $1.7 billion Columbia/HCA coughed up in fines and penalties.

When Republicans scream about reining in skyrocketing health care costs, they always focus on slashing services rather than tossing out the administrative leeches sucking all the money out of the system. It's the old, tried and true Republican dodge: when your rich cronies create a problem, kick and scream that the only solution is to hand even more money and even more power to the very cronies that created the problem in the first place.

As GOP Faces Town Hall Fury, Reid Says Senate Will Vote on Medicare-Buster

Across the nation, GOP town hall meetings continued to be raucous affairs. Boisterous crowds loudly denounced the Republican scheme to abolish Medicare, hand all the money to their insurance company cronies, and pawn off future seniors with coupons that won't even cover a third of their health care needs.

In Florida, Rep. Allen West joined the growing list of GOP factors who've faced fractious forums. He'd hardly stood up when voters loudly began decrying GOP Medicare-busting. GOP loyalists fought to suppress the dissenters. The crowd harangued West for voting to dismantle the elder-care program while giving the richest Americans an additional 10% tax cut, and West's minions tried shouting them down.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced he would be scheduling a Senate vote on Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) offending 2012 Budget proposal, allowing his Republican colleagues the opportunity to show their support for their House brethren. Or not.

The House measure is not expected to pass in the Democratically-controlled Senate, but Reid said, "Republicans seem to be in love with the Ryan budget," and the vote would demonstrate whether "Republican Senators like the budget as much as their House colleagues did."

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) had already announced she would not vote for the Ryan plan if such a vote were held.

Analysts figured the vote would put Senate Republicans in a tough bind. Voting against Medicare couponization while giving bigger tax cuts to the rich would alienate their conservative base, while voting for Medicare couponization while giving bigger tax cuts to the rich might alienate independents, they say. Oddly, analysts didn't seem to think Reid's move would help Republicans prove how great they were and what a wonderful plan they had.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) didn't say, "Great, let's show America that we Republicans are ready to vote for our terrific plan that creates sunshine and roses and lifts all Americans to heights of joy." Instead, Hatch challenged Reid to allow a vote on the House Progressive Caucus' People's Budget, thinking that would somehow embarrass Democrats. While the bill's title does reek of tie dye and patchouli, it was Hatch who came across as petulant, whiny, and inexplicably ashamed of Ryan's GOP plan.

Unfortunately, the People's Budget didn't pass in the House, so the Senate couldn't vote on it unless some Senators wanted to introduce it as a Senate bill first. Hatch, a Senate veteran, presumably knew this. It was not immediately known whether Hatch himself was planning to introduce the People's Budget.

Ryan's bill did pass the House on a strictly party-line vote, so it is available for a Senate vote. A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll revealed 84% of Americans didn't think it was a good idea to coddle the insurance biz by handing them all the money in Medicare and tossing future seniors into the retail market to fend for themselves with 30% off coupons. Ryan's budget proposes that when folks presently under 55 become seniors, they be given coupons to be used toward the purchase of private health insurance policies. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office figures by 2030, those coupons would cover less than a third of the cost of premiums, deductibles, co-pays and other expenses. Calling the coupons "premium support," as Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) did, didn't help the cause. 

The same WaPo/ABC poll revealed 72% of Americans thought Americans making more than $250,000 should pay higher taxes. Ryan's budget proposes that richer Americans tax rate be cut by another 10%, from 35% to 25%.

A more recent Gallup/USA Today poll showed Americans were evenly split on whether they preferred President Barak Obama's budget plan or Ryan's budget plan, 44%-43%. Republicans have been crowing that poll proves Americans love the idea of gutting Medicare, but Gallup/USA Today didn't ask a specific question about the voucher program. WaPo/ABC's poll found most Americans opposed Medicare couponization when it was explained to them.

Back in Florida, Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) was having a devil of a time in his Orlando town hall, with a hostile crowd of 300 booing and hissing their displeasure.

Republicans thus far are taking the tack that the catcalls are coming from Democratic plants organized by MoveOn.org. "My town halls are being disrupted by Democrats," Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA) complained. "I'm not sensing the general public is angered by Medicare reform," he added.

Barletta also did not specify whether he thought all 84% of Americans who opposed Medicare couponization were Democrats. It was not immediately known whether he had demanded the birth certificates of those who had heckled him.

Will Dems Finally Heed Americans' Call to Tax the Wealthy?

Polls and angry crowds at town hall meetings show the American people are fed up with thirty years of the GOP's supply-side, trickle-down sci-fi nonsense. That the raucous crowds are at Republican town hall meetings reveals Americans are really, really angry.

As one constituent told Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) recently, taxes should be hiked on the wealthy as "nothing trickles down." Thirty years of experience has amply demonstrated that slashing taxes for corporations and the very rich hasn't created jobs, or improved ordinary Americans' wages. This is not theory. This is cold hard fact. Wages for everyone who isn't on The Donald's Christmas card list have been stagnant since the Reagan Administration. The Donald's A-list pals, however, have raked it in.

Paul Ryan and his GOP legion would like to see the tippy-top money moguls gobble up more money, too. His 2012 Budget proposal, which sailed through the House without a single Democrat's vote, aimed to slash another 10% off the top tax tier, so those folks would enjoy the lowest taxes since the Hoover Administration. Everyone ought to know how well that worked out.

For younger folks, the term "Hooverville" is sort of like "favela," as in where you'll be living if Ryan and his ilk get their way.

And handing all the Medicare money to the GOP's insurance company cronies, then pawning off future seniors with coupons that won't even cover a third of the cost of premiums, co-pays, deductibles, and other expenses might seem like a good idea to anyone who'd like watching millions of elderly die horribly and painfully, but hasn't caught on along Main Street. Ryan's Path to Further Plutocrat Prosperity was sinisterly schemed to impoverish everyone before they'd be thrown into the gutter by forcing them to empty their savings first. Republican pols discovered a notable lack of parades greeting their proposals.

Which brings us to the first timid, tenuous intimations that Democrats might, ohmygawd, think of raising taxes on the rich by a couple of dollars. President Barack Obama proposed doing away with the Bush era tax cuts for folks making over $250,000 a year. Everyone ducked in case someone threw something.

Paul Krugman, the Princeton economist, figures that if everyone is so worried about government debt choking the halls, it should be time to raise taxes a bit. Krugman famously snagged a Nobel Prize for Economics, so he knows his way around a calculator. If you want a pitcher for the World Series, it's handy to go with someone like Tim Lincecum, who's won a couple of Cy Youngs, the award for the league's best hurler. Likewise, if you want to figure out how to balance a checkbook, Krugman might be your guy.

In his New York Times column, Krugman liked the People's Budget proposal, which was put out by the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. The queasily 60's-ish titled tome balanced federal budgets in ten years by bumping taxes on millionaires and billionaires and boosting some payroll taxes while hacking off a chunk of the defense bill. At the same time everyone was oohing and ahhing the Ryan path-to-elder-genocide plot, the People's Budget quietly went down to defeat 77-347. The tie-dye crowd might want to go with something like "Blazing Fast 4G Hyper-Debt Blaster Three Dot Oh" next time. At any rate, the guy with the Economics version of the Cy Young liked it.

Oh, and last World Series, Lincecum's San Francisco beat Texas in five games. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) jumped up and down while Bush 41 and Bush 43 looked on glumly.

Sure, the Republican wing of the Republican Party will still tell you that cutting their plutocratic pals' taxes will create jobs. They didn't mention those jobs are in India and China. Well, The Donald and his pals must get confused sometimes, as all those jetways look the same from your private plane. The Donald got so confused, he registered his plane in Bermuda. Meanwhile, Sarah Palin made a stump speech before an enthusiastic crowd in India, proving what bringing millions of jobs to a region does for your party's popularity.

In fact, what we've seen in America is that lower taxes just incentivizes scamming for more paper profits. We've seen corporate America go gaga over leveraged buyouts, mergers, asset liquidations, slashed payrolls, dumped benefits, outsourcing and offshoring to pump up the bottom line so they can stuff their pockets with as much tax-free profit as possible. When all the plants and factories and offices were closed and all the workers laid off, the money gobblers turned to all sorts of voodoo bookkeeping scams to pile up even bigger pyramids of paper profits.

And, it's not as though the big corporations needs any more tax cuts. General Electric just posted $14 billion in profits while giving Uncle Sam's tax man a great big Bronx cheer. GE was able to manipulate its books to pay no taxes at all.

Corporations are awash in cash, and nobody's making any serious move to hire Americans. The GOP will tell you companies are afraid to hire because of "uncertainty."

Well, how's this for certainty: If you don't start hiring and training Americans, we'll tax every penny you have until your ears bleed. Invest in plants, equipment, non-executive salaries, training, and company logo tsotkies, and you can keep the money. Let it sit in proprietary portfolios, or take it out in profits, and prepare for a very long sit-down with your local IRS auditor, microscopes and cavity probes provided at no additional cost.

Oh, the GOP will say raising taxes will stifle creativity and entrepreneurship, and business will falter because there'll be no incentive to compete. Hogwash. If there's an extra dollar to be had, entrepreneurs'll go get it, even if they have to share 70% of it with the rest of the society that made it all possible for them. Otherwise, they're just not entrepreneurs. They're more like fat-sucking leeches gorging themselves on Enronomic accounting scams.

Or, didn't anyone notice that America took over the world while the top tax rate was up around 70%?

Paul Ryan and his we-got-ours-and-everyone-else-can-suck-eggs-and-die crowd don't really look like they actually care about budget shortfalls and debt. The charging two wars on the nation's credit card while giving billionaires enormous tax subsidies was one hint, but the whole handing Medicare to insurers is pretty suspicious too, as it doesn't balance any budgets any time soon. If one were a skeptic - and we'd certainly be hard pressed to find one around here - one might think Ryan and his Republican cohort just wanted to find any pots of taxpayer money left in America, and hand them over to their rich contributors.

OK, maybe there are a couple of skeptics hanging around. They seem to comprise 72% of the American people, and they seem to hang around Republican town hall meetings.