Ryan says Republicans to target welfare, Medicare, Medicaid spending in 2018

[DeminPennswoods]

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Wednesday that congressional Republicans will aim next year to reduce spending on both federal health care and anti-poverty programs, citing the need to reduce America’s deficit.

“We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit,” Mr. Ryan said during an appearance on Ross Kaminsky’s talk radio show. “. . . Frankly, it’s the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the health care entitlements - because that’s really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking.” ...

“What’s coming next is all too predictable: The deficit hawks will come flying back after this bill becomes law,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the ranking Democrat on the finance committee, during a speech on the tax debate. “Republicans are already saying ‘entitlement reform’ and ‘welfare reform’ are next up on the docket. But nobody should be fooled - that’s just code for attacks on Medicaid, on Medicare, on Social Security, on anti-hunger programs.”

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-nation/2017/12/06/Ryan-says-Republicans-to-target-welfare-Medicare-Medicaid-spending-in-2018/stories/201712060162

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Who couldn't have predicted this?

[Roland99]

1. To call them ratfuckers is a disgrace to ratfuckers

[hibbing]

2. Well known to me since they took power

I'm terrified of this because of my age. Trillion dollars for corporations and the ruling class and then faux concern about deficits and spending. What evil fucks.


Peace

[groundloop]

3. Don't forget that corporations and the ruling class are job creators

[Rollo]

4. Hey, I got an idea: don't vote for the idiots that steal from the poor and give to the rich...

Duh...

[Thor_MN]

5. They want to complete the theft that started with St. Ronnie.

They started stealing the completely separate funding for Social Security and Medicare then, replacing it with IOUs. Now they want to renege on the IOUs. How very Trumpian of the assholes.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. They always pull this bait&switch scam: massive tax cuts to rich as excuse to cut the middle & poor.

[Thekaspervote]

7. Those bastards!

Who in their right mind votes for these robbers. Oh, yeah I forgot they drank the koolaid, faux news fed it to them

[liberal from boston]

18. Social Security

A Lawsuit should be filed against Paul Ryan & Mitch McConnell for stealing money from the Social Security Trust Fund to give their donors a huge tax cut. Social Security is NOT part of the budget--it is self funding . Sad that the corrupt GOP Leadership is worried about receiving money from their donors but also receiving money from Russia. Obvious they could care less about their constituents.

https://www.fedsmith.com/2013/10/11/ronald-reagan-and-the-great-social-security-heist/

[bucolic_frolic]

8. The biggest driver of debt is tax cuts for millionaires

[BumRushDaShow]

9. The other (KNOWN) shoe has now dropped

[modrepub]

10. Any "Saving" on Entitlements Will Be Offset By Increase In Military Spending

Repeat as many times as possible

[milestogo]

11. Democrats to target Ryan in 2018.

[getagrip_already]

12. who could have predicted this?

everyone.

step 1 - create a crisis by giving massive amounts of tax revenue to the ultra rich
step 2 - OMFG! THE DEFICIT IS OUT OF CONTROL
step 3 - cut spending on social programs to reduce deficit by transfering yet more money to the ultra rich

It's a pattern they follow time after time

destroy something
point out it doesnt work
defund it and move spending where it isn't needed

rinse
lather
repeat

But hey, it's what they said they would do. Why nobody believed them is a story in itself.

[BigmanPigman]

13. My motto: DON'T GET MAD, GET EVEN!

I am going to fight to nail those GOP bastards with 1,000,000% of my mind and war! THIS IS WAR RYAN and MCCONNELL! If I have to use dirty GOP tricks to win I will happily do it!

[left-of-center2012]

14. Taking money from the poor and middle class ..

to pay for the money going to the upper 1%.

[yallerdawg]

15. That's a couple Republican senators stabbed in the back!

Sometimes I get the idea they don't really want to pass anything.

Very strange!

But most opportune!!!

[Moostache]

16. No one seems to grasp how precarious this tax cut makes our national situation...

More than a TRILLION dollars in new deficits before a single projection is shown to be wildly optimistic and wrong by a factor of 5 or 10....and then we still have a healthcare crisis coming that no one is prepared for - the aging and dying off of the Baby Boomers...many of whom are now in their 70's and approaching a collective health cliff that is going to destroy every current healthcare distribution model we have and then some...

This society is on the verge of implosion and the fuck wads in the GOP just want to keep hitting the gas and speeding to the cliffs...

[They_Live]

17. See, the poor need to tap into their savings

and invest in the stock market. Just cut out the booze, movie women. pull the bootstrap. up.

[JohnnyRingo]

19. Now they want to "tackle the debt & deficit"?

I wonder where all that "debt and deficit" came from?

When will republicans drop all pretenses and quit saying they help the lower classes? They only help the poor provide grease for wealthy donors. A couple weeks ago the deficit didn't matter while tax cuts were pending. Now we're broke.

[kirby]

20. $1.5 trillion

And they will have an extra $1.5 trillion to offset too after THEIR tax bill passes.

[haele]

21. Social Security spending does not impact the deficit...

However paying back the debt from using the Social Security fund interest the Government borrowed a while back can...
So, in typical Mobster thinking, getting rid of the creditor gets rid of the debt... So stealing Social Security from those who paid their taxes over the past five or six decades could possibly reduce the deficit...on the backs of taxpayers who don't have millions of dollars in trust funds to retire on.

Haele

[onetexan]

22. Doesn't look like it's gonna happen, according to this NYMag article

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/12/paul-ryans-welfare-reform-plan-looks-doomed.html

Once Democrat Doug Jones takes his Senate seat in January, McConnell will have only 51 GOP votes in the upper chamber — which is to say, any two Republican senators will be able to kill partisan legislation that displeases them. Given that Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski were unwilling to cut Obamacare earlier this year — at the time, one of the least-popular safety-net programs in the U.S. — it seems doubtful that they’ll be interested in slashing overwhelmingly popular programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps. And Republican opposition to taking from the poor (immediately after giving to the rich) isn’t limited to “moderates”:

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a swing vote during the Obamacare repeal fight this summer, quickly changed the subject when asked about Ryan’s entitlement reform push. “Well, I’d like to see us pivot to infrastructure. We’ve talked it all year, the president talked about it,” Capito said. “I think it could be a bipartisan exercise. I would certainly hope so.”

… “All you have to do is the math,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said. “Unless it’s bipartisan, then you’re talking about reconciliation which means you have to pass a budget, you have to get reconciliation instructions and you have to get 51 Republicans all to vote for it.” The No. 2 Senate Republican added: “That’s a pretty steep hill to climb...We’re going to have a narrow majority next year,” said Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, about an entitlements fight. “We’re going to have our hands full with nominations and an infrastructure bill and a bipartisan agenda.”
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"In a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week, Paul Ryan lamented the decline of our nation’s middle class, noting, “Nearly 8 in 10 Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck; nearly half say a $500 surprise bill or emergency would put them in debt.
Ryan might be able to summon the cognitive dissonance necessary to acknowledge these realities while pushing to make emergencies even more financially ruinous for low-income people. But many of his Senate colleagues can’t. Capito’s remarks are especially telling. The West Virginia senator voted for Obamacare repeal, despite the fact that the bill would have hammered her predominantly working-class state. After voting for the Trump tax cuts, however, she appears to have lost her nerve."

Ryan's a smug bastard, and that Capito woman is just as hypocritical and spineless