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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 6:28 pm Post subject: Democrats Forcing Vote on Republican Bill |
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First article here.
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Rep. Paul Ryan is blaming the "Democratic attack machine" even though members of his own party don't publicly support his plan to dramatically cut Medicare and Social Security and effectively privatize those entitlement programs to end the deficit.
In an interview with the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, Ryan (R-WI) defended his "Roadmap" budget blueprint as a way to "prevent a fiscal crisis" in a government that's on a "path to insolvency."
Ryan insisted in the interview his plan was to get ideas on the table and end the policy stalemate in Washington. As we have been reporting, GOP leadership has backed far away from the Ryan plan and instead is touting their skeletal plan from 2009.
"The Democratic attack machine is in full throttle," Ryan told the newspaper. "It's sad but predictable."
He added: "It's really palpable about what's wrong with government. ... People are really worked up. If I lose my job over this, fine. But I want to prevent a fiscal crisis." |
He's really picking the wrong time for this. Suggesting privatization of entitlements benefits immediately after an economic disaster that would have utterly raped participants in those programs had they been privatized is incredibly foolish. Even other Republicans seem to understand this, which is why they're backing away. Democrats seem eager to capitalize on this, though:
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House Democrats want to kick House Republicans where it hurts, and are exploring ways to force the minority party to take a stand on Rep. Paul Ryan's budget "roadmap" that has become a political minefield in advance of this fall's elections.
A Democratic leadership source told TPMDC they are considering options for putting the Ryan plan on the floor, forcing Republicans to vote for or against a plan they don't want to talk about. This appears to be the Ryan bill, with seven GOP co-sponsors.
While conservative groups love the plan - which cuts Social Security and Medicare benefits before effectively privatizing the entitlement programs - and Ryan says he's willing to lose his job over presenting new policy ideas, GOP leaders are backing away.
We told you Friday the Democrats plan to force a vote on a resolution that "expresses the will of House Democrats to preserve Social Security and reaffirms our commitment to working in a bipartisan way to make common sense adjustments to strengthen the program for generations to come."
The resolution is a way to expose fissures among House Republicans and the first real indication the Democrats plan to play hardball leading up to the 2010 midterm elections.
(Read it in full here, and notice how similar it is to votes the GOP forced on issues such as leaks to the New York Times, and votes for supporting troops.)
Our leadership source tells us not to expect a vote on the resolution in the next two weeks because Democrats want to draw that out as long as possible to poke the Republicans in that 2005 wound.
"We should take our time and call out Republicans for not signing on as co-sponsors first, before voting on it," the source said. |
This puts Republicans in a pretty awkward position. They've talked about defending Medicare in particular as part of their health-care rhetoric, so voting to privatize it (especially with the economy the way it is) would make them look like hypocritical fools. On the other hand, if they vote against privatizing entitlements, they come out -- during an election year -- as opposing the ideology of privatization that they like to use in their rhetoric and which pleases their base.
This highlights nicely the price of hypocrisy. Republicans have really made a mess for themselves. They can't vote in favor of anything the Democrats propose because they've demonized them so thoroughly, but at the same time, they can't vote in favor of bills which support their party's supposed ideology because it would contradict their poorly-thought-out rhetoric and have negative consequences so obvious that even the average American could perceive them; privatization initatives are a weak sell in a turbulent, faltering economy, and they've all ready tried to characterize themselves as "Defenders of Medicare." The party has pretty much boxed itself in. Where are they supposed to go from here?
With regards to the topic itself, the entire concept of privatizing entitlements is ridiculous. The benefit of entitlement systems is reliability; you pay the government a small amount for your entire life, and know you'll get something reasonable out of it at the end. It's systematic. Privatization obliterates that; any private entity in a properly functioning market could fail, and if the entity your retirement investment is placed with fails, you get nothing. Even if it doesn't fail, your investment could turn out to be insufficient. As such, privatizing entitlements doesn't make any sense; if we're going to go the private route, the entitlement systems shouldn't even exist, and people should simply invest as they wish. Forcing people to invest with private companies is unacceptable, just like forcing people to buy private insurance is unacceptable. It's time to stop trying to codify corporate profits into the law.
If Republicans want to come out against the entitlement system entirely, I can respect that. It may not be what I think is right, but it's an ideologically consistent position. Republicans defending Medicare while attacking the idea of government health care, however, is hypocritical, and the concept of government mandated privatized entitlement systems is even more hypocritical. If the Republicans want to be the hands off party, they need to be the hands off party. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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| I like the strategy of this. With a little creative effort, there could be potentially embarrassing resolutions offered about once a week. It's an election year and if the GOP wants to be on record backing unpopular positions, well, more power to 'em. Just think, a Birther Resolution, various Health Insurance Reform resolutions including a Death Panel resolution, an anti-Blanket Hold on Appointments resolution...the list is nye endless. |
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