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As we saw in the debt limit debates, Republicans in Congress are pushing for cuts in “entitlements” and refuse to consider reducing tax breaks for the wealthy. While attacking people programs in general, the primary Republican targets are Social Security and Medicare. 

Social Security has a current surplus and the long term (post 2039) shortfalls are easily handled by raising the wage cap.  The Republicans want to divert the Social Security payroll tax, which targets lower incomes, to the general budget. 

The Republican Ryan Bill would replace Medicare with an annual $8000 voucher which would only partly fund individual policies on the open market.  Seniors would fall victim to rate gouging, treatment denial, precondition exclusions, and policy cancellations.  Medicare dollars would fund the high admin costs, executive compensation, and profits seen with current commercial health insurance. 

The Republicans champion the "trickle town/supply side" economic model which is rejected by virtually all economists (progressive and conservative).  Fifty years after Hoover, during the Reagonomics years of the early 1980s, 99.94% of the 18,000 members of the American Economic Association rejected it.  The economy is driven by consumer (70%) and government (30%) spending.  Impoverishing seniors will greatly diminish the consumer market of American businesses, further depressing the economy.  Rather than be used to chase a declining American market, the increased wealth of the rich will flow to the more lucrative growing markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China.