These are contradictory messages out of the GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's website, a day apart.It's like they want Medicare to stay exactly the same, frozen in time. They don't want to cut waste, because it's great the way it is. They don't want to let more people have it, because I guess more healthy people scares them?
Programs are perfectly fine if the money is going into the pockets of corporations. Programs are wasteful if the money is going to add value to regular people's lives.
"Now, though, Democrats are pondering a Medicare expansion of sorts. They want to let people between the ages of 55 and 64 buy insurance through Medicare. And suddenly, Republicans are stuck in a booby-trapped rhetorical space, defending Medicare from all attackers--real and perceived--and also lashing out at the idea of letting more people benefit from it."How do the Republicans oppose Medicare for 40 years, then spend six months "defending" it from health care reform, only to turn around and oppose letting more people buy into it?
The GOP's frothing defense of every last Medicare dollar being spent, whether it's wasted or not, is the party's final nail in the coffin of fiscal conservatism.There really isn't a thing that the GOP has done or championed that is fiscally conservative anymore.
And no, championing more tax cuts that get funded by borrowing is NOT fiscally conservative, especially when increasing spending at the same time (see the records of Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II as compared to Clinton).
Mind you, these are the same Republicans who voted for Bush's Prescription Drugs Medicare expansion without a way to pay for it. Do they not understand what "borrow with interest" means?
Source: TPM
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