Dear repubicans, can we at least agree to a term's meaning as we listen to your plans?

[Stinky The Clown]

That term is "restructure." As in "we need to restructure Medicare."

Can we agree that "restructure" in this context, means eliminate?

No, huh?

You guys are such liars.

[Scuba]

1. Just like you pansy liberals to want to "define" everything. Wimps.

[prairierose]

2. Words have meaning...that is their power...

it is important that we use standard meanings or there is no communication. This is where the repugnant party has become so very good at "messaging". Everyone says that they are so good at messaging but the truth is that they lie. They use a word, but they are thinking a different meaning when they say it. Let's talk about restructure in this case. Most people would think of restructure as meaning small changes in the way something works or changing the shelves in the kitchen. So they would think that restructuring is no big deal. Just make a few small changes when, in reality, changing Medicare from a program that is guaranteed health care (public health insurance) for seniors and the disabled to a program that throws seniors and the disables out to the mercy of the private insurance companies. Restructuring Medicaid , to repubs, means changing it from a program to fund medical care(public health insurance) to block grants to the states with no regulations that the states spend that money on health care for children and disabled people.

This is one of the reasons for the disconnect that we often discuss. The words they use have a meaning that they are not using. They are using a different meaning that they have assigned to the word. 1984 comes to life. But in reality, they are lying. From the shrub years here are just a couple of examples, healthy forests initiative really means, giving away forest leases to big business so they can clear cut the forests and not pay the lease price. But doesn't it suggest something positive and green? Clear skies meant allowing big polluting corporations to pollute more than they could in the past. But doesn't it suggest that blue skies will brighten our day? These are lies. But most people who do not think deeply about what they hear on the news hear taxes are the government stealing your money and think it is true. They do not think that it is the taxes that pay for the schools and the streets and the clean water in their sink and the police and the fire department and so much more.

I think that it is time that we recognize that the repubs are lying and call them on it. Whenever a repub says that tax cuts create jobs, call them on it. Tax cuts do not create jobs, they never have. All tax cuts have ever done, in any country where Friedman's fantasy economics were used, was to transfer wealth from the poor and middle-class to the richest pockets in the country. If tax cuts create jobs, why, since 2001, have we lost so many million jobs when the rich, the job creators, have gotten the biggest tax cuts in history?

Well, I have lost my train of thought so I am going to stop now before I say something stupid.

[yurbud]

3. restructure means create a series of tubes that funnel Medicare money into the pockets of the

already wealthy.