Thread: GOP Veepstakes 2012

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Times are tough man and if the 'oldsters' have to dip into their savings a bit more ...we all have to suck it up before America goes the way of Greece, eh?

Great line, maybe Romney's speechwriters will pick it up. I'm sure seniors will find it comforting and cast their votes in big numbers for the Romney-Ryan ticket. SUCK IT UP OLD FUCKS!

Originally Posted by Humbert

SUCK IT UP OLD FUCKS!

we're still ~90 days out and he hasn't even officially announced it yet, so i'm probably getting ahead of myself...but i really think he's toast if he picks ryan.

ryan's plan for medicare and social security scares the shit out of most senior citizens.

this is one of the strangest major party presidential campaigns i've ever witnessed.

regarding paul ryan's private sector work experience:

essentially he flipped burgers in high school and worked in his family business for a couple of months.

Ryan, 42, has spent the bulk of his career in the capital. The House Budget Committee chairman has been in Congress since he was 28 and before that did stints as a congressional staffer and at the late Jack Kemp’s think tank, Empower America. And the very small but influential constituency that’s now promoting Ryan hails from the same orbit of GOP thinkers and politicians as Ryan.

More than one Republican wise guy noticed the irony of The Wall Street Journal’s Thursday editorial criticizing “Beltway bedwetters” for fretting about the danger of elevating Ryan’s Medicare reform proposal given that the core of the congressman’s fan club is made up of conservative elites in the capital and his colleagues in the Capitol.

Ryan’s time working in the business world is limited to the brief period he spent at his family’s construction business in Janesville, Wis. That was only a matter of months, though. According to published reports, he returned to Wisconsin after the 1992 loss of his then-boss, Sen. Bob Kasten, but was back in Washington the next year working for Empower America. He returned to the family firm once more as a management consultant in 1997 but spent just a few months there before launching his winning congressional bid the next year.

While he wasn’t exactly a job creator, Ryan has hustled to earn a living over the years, a skill many pols never have to develop.

In high school, the Badger State native worked on a series of entry-level jobs, including a stint on a grill at a local McDonald’s. During college, he worked as an Oscar Mayer salesman and got a turn on the Wienermobile. And in his first years in Washington, he paid the rent thanks to a gig at Tortilla Coast, a Capitol Hill watering hole, and a job whipping people into shape at Washington Sport and Health Club.

Read more: Paul Ryan

"I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits -- either now or in the future."
(Remarks by President Obama to a Joint Session of Congress, September 9, 2009)

This afternoon Budget Committee Ranking Member Ryan walked through why the bill put forward by Democrats FAILS the President's deficit test.
--

The Majority Leader said the bill scores as reducing deficit by $131 billion over the next 10 years.

First a little bit about CBO: I work with them every single day; very good people; great professionals. They do their jobs well. But their job is to score what is placed in front of them. And what has been placed in front of them is a bill that is fill of gimmicks and smoke and mirrors.

Now what do I mean when I say that?

First off, the bill has ten years of tax increases and ten years of Medicare cuts to pay for six years of spending. The true ten year cost when subsidies kick-in? $2.3 trillion.

The bill is full of gimmicks that more than erase the false claim of deficit reduction:

- $52 billion of savings is claimed by counting increased Social Security payroll revenues. These dollars are already claimed for future Social Security beneficiaries, and claiming to offset the cost of this bill either means were double-counting or were not going to pay Social Security benefits.

- $72 billion in savings is claimed from the CLASS Act long-term care insurance. These so-called savings are not offsets, but rather premiums collected to pay for future benefits. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad has called these savings, A ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud.

Additionally, the nearly half-trillion dollars in Medicare cuts cannot be counted twice. Medicare is in dire need of reform in order to make certain that we can ensure health security for future seniors.

Using Medicare as a piggy bank, it raids a half trillion dollars from retirees health coverage to fund the creation of another open-ended health care entitlement.

The Presidents chief Medicare actuary says up to 20% of Medicare providers may go bankrupt or stop taking Medicare beneficiaries as a result. Millions of seniors who have chosen Medicare Advantage will lose the coverage they now enjoy.

Objections to the policy aside, you cannot use these savings twice to both extend the life of Medicare and to pay for other spending. The half-trillion dollars in Medicare cuts are either to extend the programs solvency or to reduce the cost of this deficit but not both as its authors claim.

When you strip away the double-counting of Medicare cuts, the so-called savings from Social Security payroll taxes and the CLASS Act, the deficit increases by $460 billion over first ten years and $1.4 trillion over second ten years.

Finally, one of the most expensive and most cynical of the gimmicks applies to Medicare physician payments, the so-called Doc Fix.

By your own estimate, the Doc Fix adds an additional $371 billion to the cost of health care reform. With the price tag beyond what most Americans could handle, the Majority decided to simply remove this costly provision and deal with it in a stand-alone bill.

Ignoring this additional cost does not remove it from the backs of taxpayers. Hiding spending doesnt reduce spending."

It's lovely to see how Paul Ryan eviscerates Obama & Obamacare, eh? Obama essentially had his ass handed to him...again.

some are calling this the riskiest move in romney's political career.

here is (partly) why:

Romney, who has been extremely vague about what he would do if elected, will now own Paul Ryan’s ideas, which include privatizing Social Security, turning Medicare into a voucher program, bloc-granting and drastically cutting Medicaid, and reducing discretionary spending to levels that would affect every popular government program. This Ryan agenda will now fill the vacuum created by Romney’s unwillingness to lay out the specifics of his own plan. Even before this (apparent) announcement, Democrats were planning on tying Romney to Ryan’s policy platform. Now Romney has done it for them.

Read more Looks Like Ryan: Mitt's Romney's Vice-Presidential Pick : The New Yorker

Ryan is a good pick. He will bring out the hoards of teabaggers along with any independants who have half a brain, and cinch Wisconsin.
Good move IMHO.

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

and cinch Wisconsin

really?

he represents one of eight districts in WI....and he's never held statewide office.

also worth noting that candidate obama won ryan's district in '08.

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

Ryan is a good pick. He will,.... cinch Wisconsin.

from cnn.
Prior to Saturday's announcement, many Republicans who spoke to CNN -- all of them granted anonymity to speak freely without angering Romney officials in Boston -- wondered why Romney would announce the pick on a weekend when millions of potential voters are likely to be distracted by the Olympics, PGA golf, late-season baseball and the box office release of the latest Bourne thriller.

Because...... Here's Mitt!!!

Ryan is the pick. Fact.

Breaking News & Top Stories - World News, US & Local - NBCNews.com

i don't see how anyone on the left can see this is as anything but a belated birthday gift for the president.



but i'll give romney this....

democrats and republicans agree---ryan is a great choice!

considering what ryan wants to do to medicare.....does the GOP have any chance of winning florida?

Originally Posted by raycarey

considering what ryan wants to do to medicare.....does the GOP have any chance of winning florida?

What are the specifics of Ryan's medicare plan?

to be fair, he gave a pretty good speech and he has a photogenic family.

it's his ideas that are going to sink the ticket.



btw, everyone should get used to this phrase:

"end medicare as we know it"

because you're going to hear it countless times over the next 90 days.

Ryan is a fiscal hawk, shame he wasn't VP under dubya. Too late for that now though- and he will be savaged during electioneering because of his plans to decimate Medicare & Medicaid. Seniors are a very important electoral constituency for the GOP, and the attacks will thus hurt. Hey old fogey- Obamacare doesn't look so bad now, does it?

There was no easy or obvious pick for Romney- and Ryan is as good as anybody. At least the GOP has sealed their defeat with some credibility.

more about Ryan's plan for Americans (With support and a bit of a twisted slant to it): The Ryan Plan And How It Will Murder America as We Know It

Corporate Tax Rate: the plan cuts the tax rate for Incorporated Americanss from 35% to 25%. Will this make Grover Norquist cry, given that most large Incorporated Americans currently either pay no taxes, or get money back from the government? No, it will not make him cry, because it only pretend closes a lot of tax loopholes (otherwise known as “the corporate tax code”) and thus probably does not actually change the tax rate for Incorporated Americans in anything other than theory.

Taxes for Non-Incorporated Americans: the plan creates two tax brackets: 25% and 10%. You enter the 25% tax bracket if you’re an individual making $50,000 or a joint filer or family with an income of $100,000, which means that an individual making $50,000 per year will pay the same tax rate as multi-millionaire Mitt Romney (in the event that multi-millionaire Mitt Romney deigns to pay taxes, that is, which as we know, he may or may not.) This, of course, raises taxes on the middle class (a.k.a, “one medical emergency away from being Poors”) but taxes only count when they are levied on Job Creators, so we can breathe a sigh of relief about that.

Health Insurance: Those who purchase health insurance get a non-taxable sum of $2300 in the beginning of the year, unless they are on military health plans or Medicare and joint filers get $5700 for the entire family.

Medicaid: Medicaid benefits would be paid via debit cards from a bank, thus allowing the banks to charge fees to Poors even though they may not even have bank accounts. Medicaid would also be given as block grants (as opposed to matching-grants) so about 14 million would lose their Medicaid coverage on the plan. These 14 million are probably sick, disabled, or Poors, which has raised the ire of a bunch of uppity nuns who seem to have forgotten that their mission is less about helping Poors than lecturing about sluts and buttseks. Paul Ryan has that effect on people, we guess.

Non-military spending: anything that is not “military spending,” such as foreign aid, assistance to veterans and federal funding for schools and roads would be cut by over two-thirds.

Health Insurance: the Ryan Plan sets up “health insurance exchanges,” which allow insurance companies to reach across state lines and screw you, instead of being limited to screwing residents within state lines.

Medicare: if you become eligible for Medicare prior to January 1, 2021, you can still “retire” at 65; otherwise you have to “retire” at 67. By “retire” we mean “continuing to work until you’re 80 and then dying.” Medicare will consist of “standard payments” for health care coverage. These “standard payments” are the average amount that Medicare spends per beneficiary, unless you make $80,000 per year or more, in which case you get half that. Also, it will be “geographically adjusted” at first but then they’ll phase that out at some point. Unlike the 2010 version of the plan, the 2012 plan allows Olds to stay on Medicare if they REALLY REALLY want to, but they will have to purchase it using these standard payments, and it will cost them more than if traditional Medicare was left in place.

Social Security: are you feeling left out, Social Security beneficiaries? Don’t, because you’re in here too! In the Ryan Plan, Social Security becomes an opt-out system wherein you’re given a personal account to which you contribute annually, administered by a Social Security Savings Account Board, and then when you retire, you get payments from your account in the form of an annuity.

So in summary, the Ryan Plan will privatize anything and everything, raise your taxes if you make over $50,000 per year, cut them if you make over $200,000 per year, and end Medicare and Medicaid as we know it.

Originally Posted by raycarey

considering what ryan wants to do to medicare.....does the GOP have any chance of winning florida?

4 pages about the Ryan pick and what it might do in keeping Florida blue: Ryan could be a drag on Mitt Romney in Florida - MiamiHerald.com

Paul Ryan’s plans to restructure Medicare poses challenges in Florida as does his one-time opposition to the Cuban embargo, a now-reversed position that gives some Cuban Americans pause.

Republicans are rejoicing at Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate.

But so are Democrats.

Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman, is the architect of the Ryan budget plan that makes big changes to Medicare and Medicaid and could allow for some privatization of Social Security. And that’s widely seen as a politically risky stance in Florida, a must-win state for Republicans.

Ryan might have another Florida problem: He once opposed the U.S. embargo on Cuba, a now-reversed stance that concerns some in Miami-Dade’s exile community, which is overwhelmingly Republican and had hoped that one of their own, Sen. Marco Rubio, would have been picked as Romney’s running mate. The county’s elderly Cuban population also relies heavily on government assistance, particularly Medicare.

Polls indicate that voters over 50 years old — who make up more than half the Florida electorate — are wary of changes to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which together pump about $96 billion yearly into the hands of the elderly, the infirm and the hospitals, doctors and other providers who give them care.

By picking Ryan, Romney shows he’s ready to fight for conservative changes to the liberal-legacy programs.

“We won’t duck the tough issues... we will lead,” Ryan said in his official acceptance speech in Norfolk, Va. “We won’t blame others... we will take responsibility. We won’t replace our founding principles...we will reapply them.”

Democrats are ready, too, for a battle of ideas.

“Paul Ryan wants to privatize Social Security. Looking forward to welcoming Mitt and his pick to Florida,” U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, a Boca Raton Democrat, tweeted. “There’s nothing brave about cutting the programs that America’s seniors rely on for their health and financial security.”

At the heart of the controversy is Ryan’s proposal to turn Medicare in the future into a “premium support” system that would directly subsidize insurance companies on behalf of seniors. It would essentially put more caps on future Medicare expenditures.

Democrats prefer to use the “V” word to describe the plan: Voucher. And they point to independent studies showing that the voucher, a predetermined amount of money that escalates at a predetermined rate over time, won’t keep pace with the inflation of medical costs.

Bottom line: Seniors would have to pay much more out of pocket in the future. Services could be cut.

Ryan and the plan’s defenders point out that nothing’s free. Someone’s always paying something for Medicare or any other government program. He said he wants to change the plan for those younger than 55 to save the program, which is on an unsustainable path.

A Florida poll last week showed Baby Boomers, worried about their future, plan to rely more on Social Security and Medicare than they had initially anticipated. So talk of cuts can spook these voters.

Similar to voters overall in other polls, Baby Boomers in Florida deadlocked 45-46 percent over whether they’d vote for President Obama or Romney, according to an American Association of Retired Person’s survey of 500 older voters last week. Retirees favored Romney over Obama by 48-43 percent, a lead within the poll’s 4.4 percent error margin.

snip to page 3

But even Republicans might not be on board with wholesale Medicare changes, according to an AARP poll last year of Florida Republican voters. It showed that modest changes to benefits for future retirees are opposed by 66 percent of voters. Only 27 percent favor future reductions, which could include raising the retirement age, though the poll didn’t specifically address that issue.

Asked if they favored or opposed reducing Medicare benefits to help reduce the deficit, only 22 percent liked the idea. About 70 percent didn’t.

Originally Posted by raycarey

considering what ryan wants to do to medicare.....does the GOP have any chance of winning florida?

It's virtually impossible for Romney to win Florida now. Florida's elderly (a huge demographic) will be lined up in droves on election day to protect their Medicare and Social Security from the likes of Paul Ryan. Romney's choice for VP is a terrible tactical mistake that gives Obama a huge advantage. If the election is close, there will probably be only 8 swing states - New Hampshire, N. Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada. If Obama wins Florida, he can lose all 7 of the other swing states and still win the election. Here's the type of TV ad that the Dems can expect to run to pound away at Ryan's philosophical opposition to programs for the elderly. The Dems are finally getting as nasty as Karl Rove and the Republicans, so we may see ads like this attacking Ryan:

Originally Posted by barbaro

Whether Ryan is a Congressman or becomes VP, it is irrelevant of what his stance on Medicare is.

Since he currently chairs the House budget committee it's pretty relevant.

Originally Posted by GooMaiRoo

It's virtually impossible for Romney to win Florida now. ....

It's virtually impossible for Romney to legally win Florida now. Why do I feel the need to qualify my earlier post? Because voter suppression by the Florida Republicans might engineer an official result different than the intent of the Florida voters. I certainly hope it's not Bush-Gore all over again but ...

Florida GOP Takes Voter Suppression to a Brazen New Extreme | Ari Berman | Politics News | Rolling Stone