After panning ‘radical’ GOP Medicare plan, Gingrich says he’d vote for it

By Sahil Kapur

WASHINGTON – In the span of three days, he went from lambasting the GOP Medicare privatization plan as too radical to endorsing it and declaring his full support.

"I would have voted for the budget," former Republican House speaker and presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich told Media Matters in a video captured Tuesday night at an event in Minnesota. Would he vote for it today? "Sure," he said. "[Ryan]'s a very good friend of mine. And I think he's doing a brilliant job."

The remarks came hours after Gingrich personally called and apologized to Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), the author of the House-approved blueprint, for deriding it as "right-wing social engineering" on Sunday.

Gingrich's transformation didn't happen on its own. It came amid a vicious tongue-lashing from conservatives. The 2012 candidate felt the wrath of the Republican establishment like none other after declaring on NBC's Meet The Press that the proposal would "impose" "radical change" on Americans.

"With allies like that, who needs the left?" Ryan responded, as other conservatives tagged it as the implosion of Gingrich's 2012 ambitions.

Columnist Charles Krauthammer, who previously hailed Gingrich as a bastion of big ideas, declared that "he's done," and "it's over." Talk show host Bill Bennett had him on as a guest and tore into him. Across the web, conservatives who seldom lay a glove on the ex-speaker were furious. An Iowa voter even walked up to him and called him an "embarrassment to our party."

The apology and 180 degree flip came after Gingrich tried and failed to claim his remarks were simply overblown and taken out of context. "I used language that was too strong, although the underlying principle, I think, was right," he said Monday, before singing a different tune the next day.

Democrats have hardly contained their glee. White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer tweeted: "Biggest takeaway from the Gingrich flap - ending Medicare as we know it is the new GOP litmus test."

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out an email to supporters declaring that it's "clear" that the GOP plan is "too extreme when even Newt Gingrich think it's radical."

Gingrich, for his part, offered a disclaimer Tuesday night on Fox News: "Any ad which quotes what I said Sunday is a falsehood."

Rep. Allen West Accuses Wavering GOP Leadership Of Lacking ‘Moral Courage’ If Ryan Plan Is Dropped

By Scott Keyes









As the GOP encounters increasing division among its own ranks over the Ryan budget, Republican leaders are openly considering abandoning their plan to end Medicare. Indeed, multiple Republican senators have expressed significant reservations or outright opposition to the plan.

As a result, many on the conservative wing of the Republican Party are speaking out against the GOP leadership’s handling of the issue. One such man is Tea Party favorite Rep. Allen West (R-FL).

ThinkProgress interviewed West prior to his town hall meeting this week in Riviera Beach. We asked the Florida congressman if he was worried about his party’s leadership wavering on the Ryan budget. West noted that while he stands “on [his] own convictions and [his] own principles,” he worried that Republican leaders might not possess the “moral courage” to reform Medicare and Social Security:

KEYES: Shifting gears slightly to the Ryan budget in Congress, there were some reports last week that some of the GOP leaders – Dave Camp – of the House Ways and Means Committee might be backing off, saying he doesn’t want to bring it up. A number of senators were saying that they weren’t wanting to support it, like Senator Portman, Senator Alexander. Are you worried that the leadership might be wavering on this?

WEST: No, I don’t, because I stand on my own convictions and my own principles, and if they don’t have the moral courage to understand that we’re dealing with a very serious situation – look the Medicare trustees report just came out Friday. It said in 2024 it’s over for Medicare and 12 years later it’s over for Social Security. So, we can continue to run around and lie to the American people and tell them the things we think that they want to hear just so we think that we can stay in political power or position, but what does that do for the future legacy of our country? What does that do for my 18 and my 14 year old daughters?

Watch it:





GOP leaders have seen disastrous polling on the plan to end Medicare and the resulting town hall backlash after its passage in the House. They are trying to prevent their party from being electorally crucified on the cross of Ryan’s budget. However, if Tea Party congressmen like West, who were elected in droves last year and paved the way for John Boehner to become Speaker of the House, have their way, it will be extraordinarily difficult for Republican leaders to walk away from the Ryan plan.

UPDATEAt a town hall the following day in Pompano Beach, West was asked about deporting Muslims. While he didn't agree to that, he did say that "one of the problems we have in this country is that political correctness will end up killing us." The exchange was captured on Youtube. Watch it:

Thousands Gather In Lansing To Protest Budget

From Click on Detroit







LANSING, Mich. -- Thousands of Michigan teachers, public employees and others staged a protest at the state Capitol Wednesday.

Protests last month were sparked by the Republican governor's efforts to give sweeping new powers to emergency financial managers and tax most retirement income. Snyder agreed Tuesday not to tax seniors over age 66, but protesters say he's still forcing residents to pay for business tax cuts.

Unions are upset about proposals they say would undermine collective bargaining rights. Other groups are upset about proposed cuts to education funding and other programs.

IMAGES: Thousands Gather In Lansing To Protest Proposed Budget

Snyder has said the protests are part of the democratic process.

WATCH: RAW VIDEO: Protesters Gather In Lansing 
Watch: Unions Rally In Lansing In Opposition Of Snyder's Budget Cuts

More than 100 Detroit city bus drivers called in sick so they could attend the rally. It resulted in several route delays or cancellations.

“We really apologize to our public and people who ride with us every day. We love you and we’re doing this for you, not just for us,” said Detroit bus driver William Williams. “If the cuts being proposed are allowed to happen, there are going to be more inconveniences that this one day. This is one day to save the rest of the year.”

Full Story: DDOT Sick-Out Causes Major Delays

Several protesters voiced their fear of a financial takeover of the city of Detroit. But Snyder told Local 4 he has no plans to take action in assigning a manager for city.

"We're going to work with them on it in terms of a consent agreement, a budget plan that works well. And help work with them on monitoring follow through to make sure these appropriate things happen so we can avoid this problem," Snyder said

Obama slams GOP budget plan, calls for preserving Medicare and raising taxes on the rich

By Sahil Kapur

WASHINGTON – In a major speech Wednesday afternoon, President Barack Obama fiercely criticized the GOP's long-term budget, drawing a sharp contrast with the Republican vision of government and calling for "shared sacrifice" as he offered his own deficit-reduction plan.

Calling his approach "more balanced," the president proposed to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 12 years with a four-point plan: Keep domestic spending low, cut the defense budget, improve health care efficiency, and end the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

"This debate over budgets and deficits is about more than just numbers on a page, more than just cutting and spending," Obama said at George Washington University. "It’s about the kind of future we want. It’s about the kind of country we believe in."

Amidst a national debate about the future of so-called entitlement programs, Obama offered a stirring defense of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. "We are a better country because of these commitments," he said. "I'll go further – we would not be a great country without those commitments."

The president criticized the House GOP's budget that seeks to cut trillions in federal spending while privatizing Medicare over ten years and slashing taxes on the rich, calling it a "deeply pessimistic" vision for America, one that declines to take care of seniors and poor people or invest in infrastructure.

"It’s a vision that says America can’t afford to keep the promise we’ve made to care for our seniors," Obama said of the plan authored by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI). "Put simply, it ends Medicare as we know it."

"I will not allow Medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry, with a shrinking benefit to pay for rising costs."

Obama said the deficit was significantly exacerbated by the Bush tax cuts for high income earners, and promised to rescind them. "We made the problem worse with trillions of dollars in unpaid-for tax cuts," he said, "tax cuts that went to every millionaire and billionaire in the country; tax cuts that will force us to borrow an average of $500 billion every year over the next decade. "

We cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society," he said. "And I refuse to renew them again."

Obama vigorously defended liberalism at various points in the speech, making a case for the role of government as a force for good.

Watch Obama take on the GOP budget, via CNN's Newsroom on April 13, 2011.

Right-Wing Media Tout Ryan's "Serious" Budget Plan As Economists Point Out Serious Flaws

From Media Matters

Right-wing media figures are trumpeting Rep. Paul Ryan's budget proposal as "serious" and "necessary" and an "adult plan." But noted economists have condemned the proposal, saying it contains ideas that have "been tried and failed."

Right-Wing Media Tout "Genius" Ryan's "Serious" Budget Plan

Kilmeade: Rep. Ryan "Might Be A Genius." While discussing Ryan's plan, Fox & Friends' Brian Kilmeade said:

But this is titanic in its implication. In my lifetime, I've never seen a House, or one branch of government, take such bold action to revamping our whole economic system, while the President, by almost all accounts, has punted. He said, I give you my budget. Everyone said, what's this? Even, the deficit commission said, did you listen anything I said?

What Paul Ryan does, who, by the way, might be a genius, I'm pretty sure. He put together something that is so forward leaning, it's going to make people say, "Wait a minute, we can't easily demagogue this, because it's so hard to define." He goes beyond $4 trillion dollars. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/4/11]

Brooks: Ryan's Proposal Will "Set The Standard Of Seriousness For Anybody Who Wants To Play In This Discussion." From David Brooks' New York Times column:

The country lacked that leadership until today. Today, Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, is scheduled to release the most comprehensive and most courageous budget reform proposal any of us have seen in our lifetimes. Ryan is expected to leap into the vacuum left by the president's passivity. The Ryan budget will not be enacted this year, but it will immediately reframe the domestic policy debate.

His proposal will set the standard of seriousness for anybody who wants to play in this discussion. It will become the 2012 Republican platform, no matter who is the nominee. Any candidate hoping to win that nomination will have to be able to talk about government programs with this degree of specificity, so it will improve the G.O.P. primary race.

[...]

I don't agree with all of it that I've seen, but it is a serious effort to create a sustainable welfare state -- to prevent the sort of disruptive change we're going to face if national bankruptcy comes. [The New York Times, 4/4/11]

Palin Touts "Serious & Necessary Reform" By "Serious & Necessary Leadership." From a post to Sarah Palin's Twitter feed, linking to a December, 2010 Wall Street Journal column in support of what she called "the Ryan Roadmap":

[Twitter.com, 4/5/11]

Beck: Ryan Is "One Of The Only Serious People In Washington ... On The Budget." From a discussion of Rep. Ryan's budget on Fox & Friends:

BECK: He's one of the only serious people in Washington, I think, on the budget. I mean, he can debate it, he can talk about it, he knows it inside and out. He knows what he's talking about.

The other option is to go, for instance, on Medicare, with the Zeke Emanual complete live system, which is what helped design this whole system, which is a rationing of medical care and services. That is what's coming. They'll continue to deny it, but they've also continued to deny everything else that has been proven on this network.

DOOCY: One of the other details that, according to Mr. Ryan, is in his proposal, which he wrote about in the Wall Street Journal today is he'd also like to reduce the top income tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent.

BECK: Good luck getting that done. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/5/11]

Washington Examiner's Klein: Ryan Produced "A Serious Budget Proposal For A Serious Time." From an article by Philip Klein in The Washington Examiner:

This morning, Ryan has revealed his budget for 2012 and beyond, and I'm happy to report that it acknowledges the magnitude of the moment. It is a serious proposal to put our nation on a path to some semblance of fiscal solvency. [The Washington Examiner, 4/5/11]

Meanwhile, Actual Economists Criticize Ryan's Budget Plan

Mark Thoma: Ryan's Budget Plan Is Part Of GOP Strategy To Create Deficits And Use Them "As A Club Against Social Insurance Programs." University of Oregon economics professor Mark Thoma wrote:

The game being played here has little to do with the budget itself. It is an ideological debate about the role and obligation of government. First, cut taxes for the wealthy to create a big hole in the budget, have a Great Recession aid the cause by stripping government at all levels of tax revenue, increasing costs of serving people, and creating short-run deficit problems (and a war here and there doesn't hurt the cause either), and finally use the deficit as a club against social insurance programs such as Medicare and Social Security.

The cover for the attempt to get government out of the social insurance game is the deficit, but deficit reduction is not the primary purpose. The goal to reduce the government's involvement in these programs by whatever means. If deficit reduction was, in fact, the primary goal, there are much better ways to do this than the Ryan plan, e.g. the market-based mechanisms in the ACA. [Economist's View, 4/5/11]

Krugman: "The Republican Plan Is A Giant Game Of Bait-And-Switch, Dismantling A Key Piece Of The Social Safety Net In Favor Of A Privatized System." New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote:

It's going to be just like the Social Security fight, only worse: once again, Very Serious People will pretend not to notice that the Republican plan is a giant game of bait-and-switch, dismantling a key piece of the social safety net in favor of a privatized system, claiming that this is necessary to save money, but never acknowledging that privatization in itself actually costs money. And we'll have endless obfuscation, both-sides-have-a-point reporting that misses the key point, which is that the putative savings come entirely from benefit cuts somewhere in the distant future that would, in all likelihood, never actually materialize. (What do you think will happen when retirees in 2025 discover that their Medicare vouchers aren't enough to buy insurance?) [NewYorkTimes.com, 4/5/11]

Baker: "Almost Everything In The Plan Has Been Tried And Failed." Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research wrote:

I want to join those in commending Representative Paul Ryan, but for a slightly different reason. Representative Ryan has provided a valuable service to the country by tossing out a piece of warmed-over dreck that calls for a massive upward redistribution from the nation's workers to the rich. This is clear to anyone who reads it.

[...]

The reason why this is so useful is that there is nothing in the Ryan plan that has not been circulated in policy circles for decades. Almost everything in the plan has been tried and failed. The plan ignores obvious economic realities, such as the bubble-induced recession that has left 25 million people unemployed or underemployed. It doesn't lay a glove on the rich and powerful, while threatening to undermine the limited economic security enjoyed by tens of millions of middle class families.

Yet many pundits will applaud the plan as brave, innovative and creative. In making these pronouncements these pundits will immediately reveal themselves as worthless hacks who either lack the ability or desire to do their own thinking. Their endorsement of the Ryan plan will be like a scarlet letter permanently marking them as someone who has no place in a serious policy discussion. For this reason we owe Mr. Ryan a real debt of gratitude. [Center for Economic and Policy Research, 4/5/11]

IHS Global Insight Economist: "I'm Not Quite Sure What Assumption ... Would Deliver 2.8 Percent Unemployment." Nigel Gault of IHS Global Insight questioned conservative claims that the proposal would reduce the unemployment rate to 2.8 percent:

Nigel Gault, Global Insight's chief U.S. economist, noted that in any economic model, forecasters make assumptions about labor supply, capital spending and other details that can affect the projections.

"I'm not quite sure what assumption... would deliver 2.8 percent unemployment," Gault said in an interview, adding: "We might assume different parameters." [The National Journal, 4/5/11]

Paul Ryan’s Multiple Unicorns

By Paul Krugman

Gosh. For a plan that supposedly sets a new standard of seriousness, Paul Ryan’s vision (pdf) depends an awful lot on unicorn sightings — belief in the impossible. Let me review the top three unicorns.

First, the plan assumes that tax cuts will set off a literally unprecedented boom. Here’s again, is what is assumed about unemployment:

House budget proposal

So Ryan is claiming that unemployment will plunge right away; that by 2015 it will be down to the levels at the peak of the 1990s boom (and far below anything achieved under the sainted Ronald Reagan); and that by 2021 it will be below 3 percent, a level we haven’t seen in more than half a century. Right.

Then there’s the Medicare business. According to the CBO analysis, a typical senior would end up spending more than twice as much of his or her own income on health care as under current law. As Dean Baker points out, this means that seniors would end up paying most of their income for health care. Again, right.

But in a way, the worst part isn’t the Medicare plan: it’s the fact — which so far has not penetrated the debate — that the biggest source of supposed savings in the plan isn’t actually health care, it’s an assumption that federal spending on everything except health and Social Security can somehow be squeezed, as a percent of GDP, to a small fraction of current levels. Here’s the table, from Ryan’s own report:

Notice the marked area at the bottom: Ryan is assuming that everything aside from health and SS can be squeezed from 12 percent of GDP now to 3 1/2 percent of GDP. That’s bigger than the assumed cut in health care spending relative to baseline; it accounts for all of the projected deficit reduction, since the alleged health savings are all used to finance tax cuts. And how is this supposed to be accomplished? Not explained.

This isn’t a serious proposal; it’s a strange combination of cruelty and insanely wishful thinking.