A couple of nights ago Bob Somerby watched the folks on
MSNBC discussing the Ryan/Romney charge that Democrats "funneled" $716
billion out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare. He was unhappy with the liberal response:
Unlike most Republican programs of the Bush era, Obamacare is fully paid for — as Obama himself has boasted repeatedly. This was an act of political courage for which Democrats deserve credit, but it was only courageous because it has a downside. And the downside is that the money to pay for Obamacare had to come from somewhere. In the end, most of it came from two places: (1) an assortment of modest tax increases, and (2) an assortment of modest spending reductions on Medicare.
Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/08/paying-obamacare
On Wednesday, Rachel Maddow asked Ezra Klein to clear up all the confusion....But uh-oh! Like his blog-mate Sarah Kliff, Klein largely repeated Romney’s Medicare charges—restated those charges in his own voice!The problem here is simple: there is no silver bullet liberal response to Ryan's Medicare charges. This is because, rhetorical excesses aside, his charges are basically correct.
....Go ahead—ask yourself this: At any point, does Klein make a clear, concise statement about what Ryan said that was wrong? No such statement ever occurs in this wandering ballad. Instead, Klein throws a bewildering array of figures and claims into a very thick stew.
Unlike most Republican programs of the Bush era, Obamacare is fully paid for — as Obama himself has boasted repeatedly. This was an act of political courage for which Democrats deserve credit, but it was only courageous because it has a downside. And the downside is that the money to pay for Obamacare had to come from somewhere. In the end, most of it came from two places: (1) an assortment of modest tax increases, and (2) an assortment of modest spending reductions on Medicare.
Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/08/paying-obamacare
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