Patriotic American Veterans and Seniors have No Reason To Support The Radical Conservative Agenda

Patriotic American Seniors have No Reason To Support The Radical Conservative Agenda

Heritage Foundation president and former Senator Jim DeMint suggested to a town hall audience in Wilmington, Delaware, Thursday that health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid are “un-American” and built on the principles of “socialism and collectivism.”

“I cannot think of anything that’s more un-American than national government-run health care,” DeMint said. “Those who believe in those principles of socialism and collectivism we’ve seen over the centuries, they see as their holy grail taking control of the health care system.”

Though DeMint was referring specifically to the Affordable Care Act, a law the Heritage Foundation is urging Congress to defund in next month’s continuing resolution, his comments could also apply to existing programs that have more direct government involvement than the ACA.

While the federal government does establish the rules and guidelines private insurers must follow in offering coverage for the uninsured though reform and directly finances insurance expansion for lower-income Americans who are eligible for Medicaid — often by contracting with private insurers — numerous other popular government programs like Medicare, the Veterans Health Administration and even the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP) (which DeMint himself relied on for health care coverage as a member of the Senate) are operated by the government.

Public health comprises more than 40 percent [2] of the nation’s health care spending and that percentage will remain stable [3] as the Affordable Care Act is implemented. By 2014,“private health insurance is anticipated to account forroughly 31 percent [4]of national health spending, or about the same share as was expected without enactment of the Affordable Care Act,” actuaries at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid estimate.

DeMint warned his town hall audience that the system threatens Americans’ freedoms. “[Health care is] such a personal service, it’s such a big part of the economy,” he said. “If [Democrats] can control that, they can control most areas of our lives.”

Nothing could be more American than Americans taking care of Americans. What is Medicare? It is an insurance program that Americans pay into to help ourselves, our families and our neighbors. And if any kind of public program is anti-American socialism as freaky radical conservative Jim DeMint says, than every veteran who has ever received any benefits from government health care is a socialist. Why can't seniors, vets and the disabled pay their own way. Well, the fact is they do. One way or another they contribute money, work or economic activity to the system, run by and for the people. What could be more democratic about that. DeMint and the increasingly radical conservative movement are preaching a dangerous UnAmerican philosophy called social-darwinism. It is time to stop being fooled by conservative doubletalk that wraps deeply radical UnAmerican ideas in the flag and the Bible.

This Week's Links For True Blue Patriots

This Week's Links For True Blue Patriots

Good News: Gilberton Police Chief  and Neo-Confederate Conservative Mark Kessler Suspended Indefinitely

 GOP’s destructive grifter: Super Conservative America Hater Jim DeMint peddles political poison - Republicans are starting to realize that Jim DeMint's “Defund Obamacare” campaign is all about funding his empire

National Right to Kill Children member and draft dodging America hater Ted Nugent: Great Society "Responsible For More Destruction To Black America" Than Slavery, KKK

In fact, the President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society initiative -- which included Medicare, Medicaid and a variety of other anti-poverty programs -- was responsible for significant and lasting reductions in poverty. As Washington Post reporter Dylan Matthews noted, "the best evidence indicates that the War on Poverty made a real and lasting difference"

Health Insurance "Coverage Gap" Coming to a Red State Near You

Roughly 260 million Americans (roughly 85 percent) already have health insurance provided by their employers, the government or through individual policies they purchased. In places like Oregon, Colorado, New York, California and other, mostly Democratic states, governors and state legislators accepted the expansion of Medicaid to provide free health insurance for those earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty (FPL). For those earning between 138 and 400 percent of the FPL, the Affordable Care Act's subsidies will help them purchase insurance in the private market. But in the states where Republicans said "no" to the expansion of Medicaid, the picture is much different. As the AP explained the coverage gap:

    Nearly 2 in 3 uninsured people who would qualify for health coverage under an expansion of Medicaid live in states which won't broaden the program or have not yet decided on expansion.

The resulting Republican body count is staggering. Thanks to the GOP's rejection of Medicaid expansion, 1.3 million people in Texas, 1 million in Florida, 534,000 in Georgia and 267,000 in Missouri will be ensnared in the coverage gap.

How can this be, the conservative movement claims to be pro-life. It truns out they mean they only care about clumps of cells.

National Public Radio, which the wacky conservative movement claims has a pro-American liberal bias, Pushes Myth That Raising Minimum Wage Would Kill Jobs. These large corporations are making historic profits and paying their executives historically high wages and bonuses. They could pay themselves something reasonable for not doing much except seating at a desk and going to meetings, take the money saved and pay it to the people who do the actual work that makes these companies have a profit.

In Effort To Woo Female Voters, The UnAmerican plastic patriot from Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell(R) Touts Women’s Law He Voted Against

5 Terrifying Things about the Sequester

5 Terrifying Things about the Sequester. Just my top two, the rest are at the link.

1. The sequester will hurt job-growth

As we pointed out during the debates raging in the run-up to the “fiscal cliff," the sequester was the second-most damaging component of the austerity bundle set to take effect on January 1, 2013. The worst component was the non-renewal of the payroll tax cut, which is already dragging substantially on the economy. All told, if the sequester kicks in the economy will likely end the year with roughly 500-600,000 fewer jobs than if it were repealed. These are jobs the economy desperately needs. To be clear, the sequester alone won’t drive the U.S. economy back into outright recession, but it surely will make the agonizingly slow recovery that much slower. Further, it’s worth noting that even a full repeal of it with no offset will still result in an economy growing much too slowly to quickly return to full-employment. In a nutshell, arguments over the sequester are roughly about whether we’d like to be $900 billion or a full $1 trillion below economic potential in the coming year.

....5. Entitlement are commitment devices. That’s scary.

Given that much of the negotiation over the sequester is how to “pay for” its repeal with other spending cuts, it should be noted that legislated changes to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA do not need annual appropriations, and hence are likely to be much longer-lasting than any agreed-to discretionary cuts. Replacing the sequester with cuts to these valued programs would be a disaster. We have shown, for example, that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid combined contributed ten times as much to income growth for middle-income households over the last generation than growth in hourly wages. These programs are, by far, the part of the U.S. economy that still manages to deliver some goods to low- and moderate-income households. Gutting them in the name of securing a better economic future is perverse indeed. Obviously, pure efficiencies that save these programs money—tougher drug bargaining for Medicare, or reforms to provider reimbursement that squeeze out economic rents and improve quality—are welcome. But simple cuts to these programs that shift costs onto households as a way to pay for the sequester is close to a worst-case outcome.

What is a Nightmare? The Day After Morally Bankrupt Mitt Romney is Elected

What is a Nightmare? The Day After Morally Bankrupt Mitt Romney is Elected

Despite the difficulty nailing down a chameleon-like candidate's positions, we've tried to discern some of the economic measures that Romney would likely champion if he wins. We'll follow up with a look at non-economic policies in the coming days.

1. The Romney-Ryan Budget

Let's assume, for the moment, that the Republicans take the Senate.

Mitt Romney has at times embraced Paul Ryan's “roadmap [3],” and he's also distanced himself from it. But there will be quite a bit of pressure from conservative activists and the Republican House to enact something along the lines of the roadmap.

There are two things to understand about Paul Ryan's budget. First, it has been carefully written so that most of its provisions can be passed under a process known as budget reconciliation, which requires only a simple majority of votes in the Senate. Second, it is a right-wing fantasy that, if enacted as written, would trigger a major drop in employment and send the economy into a tailspin. Its cuts are so deep, and would effect so many constituents – including traditionally Republican constituents – that it would have to be modified. It's one thing to campaign on such a plan and another to govern with it.

What does it do? According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities [4], “by 2050, most of the federal government aside from Social Security, healthcare and defense would cease to exist, according to figures in a Congressional Budget Office analysis.”

    The CBO report, prepared at Chairman Ryan’s request, shows that Ryan’s budget path would shrink federal expenditures for everything other than Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and interest payments to just 3¾ percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2050. Since, as CBO notes, “spending for defense alone has not been lower than 3 percent of GDP in any year [since World War II]” and Ryan seeks a high level of defense spending — he increases defense funding by $228 billion over the next ten years above the pre-sequestration baseline — the rest of government would largely have to disappear. That includes everything from veterans’ programs to medical and scientific research, highways, education, nearly all programs for low-income families and individuals other than Medicaid, national parks, border patrols, protection of food safety and the water supply, law enforcement, and the like.

Ryan has already modified his plan in response to the outcry over a CBO analysis that found future retirees would face $6,400 more in out-of-pocket healthcare costs. We can expect further modifications because no Republican administration is actually going to slash veterans' benefits to the bone, to name just one example. It's untenable, but that doesn't mean President Romney wouldn't push through something moderately less damaging.

2. Tax Cuts or rewarding rich people for being rich, not for work.

Romney promises to slash taxes by 20 percent across the board, maintain deductions enjoyed by the middle class and not decrease the share of taxes paid by the wealthy (or anyone else). We know Romney's math simply doesn't work [5] – it's impossible. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3708

But while the whole doesn't add up, Romney could get a number of those provisions passed, like eliminating the inheritance tax, the Alternative Minimum Tax (which hits high earners), and certainly keeping the “Bush tax cuts” on income investment in place.

When a candidate presents a plan that literally does not add up, it's not possible to predict what he'd do with any specificity once in office. Based on the recent history of GOP governance, the sharp right turn the party's taken in recent years and Mitt Romney's own background, one can be reasonably confident that Romney would cut taxes on high earners and corporations, but projecting by how much – and whether it would be financed through deficits, additional cuts or higher taxes on the middle class – is an exercise in reading the tea leaves.

3. ObamaCare

Mitt Romney has pledged to repeal ObamaCare and replace it with a plan that, while light on details, would be centered around health savings accounts and insurance deregulation. Employers would throw some cash into the accounts, people would get some tax breaks and then the miracle of the free market will supposedly swoop in and fix our broken healthcare system.

Repealing ObamaCare may not be as cut-and-dried as the Republican base has been led to believe, however. Contrary to the mythology surrounding the program, the Congressional Budget Office projects ObamaCare to reduce the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming decade and beyond. According to Senate rules now in effect, the reconciliation process cannot be used to pass anything that increases the budget deficit 10 years from now.

There are ways to get around procedural rules, and failing that, the executive branch has a lot of discretion in terms of implementation. A Romney adviser told Politico [6] that if the Dems hold the Senate, “we would just have to try to grind out changes by starving ObamaCare through regulations.”

If Romney is able to repeal ObamaCare and replace it with his plan, a study by the Commonwealth Fund [7] projects that it will leave 72 million uninsured by 2022 – 45 million more than is projected under ObamaCare.
A tragic irony is that Romney's healthcare plan would likely prove to be a fatal blow [8] to the best thing he's ever accomplished in public service – the “RomneyCare” scheme in Massachussetts.

4. Medicare

There is little doubt that Mitt Romney would pursue a variant of Paul Ryan's plan to voucherize Medicare for those who retire after a given date (in Ryan's plan it's 2023). Seniors would at first get a voucher sufficient to cover the cost of a private insurance plan comparable to Medicare. But the value of that voucher would only increase by the rate of overall economic growth plus 0.5 percent. The problem is that healthcare costs grow a lot faster. The difference would be borne by seniors themselves – it does nothing to contain healthcare costs, it just shifts them from the government to the backs of individuals.

When the CBO scored Ryan's first plan in 2011, it found that seniors would face an additional $6,400 in out-of-pocket expenses by 2022. After Democrats jumped on that figure, Ryan released a new plan, which called for Congress to come up with some unspecified remedy. CBO wasn't able to score it, but said [9] “beneficiaries might face higher costs.”

Ryan would also raise the retirement age to 67, a measure Romney has endorsed.

It's entirely possible that a President Romney would sweeten the deal a bit to make those numbers look better in the medium-term, but any voucher plan that doesn't keep up with the actual increase in healthcare costs achieves the same thing -- eventually shifting part of the burden onto seniors.

5. Medicaid

While Medicare has received the most attention, Ryan's plan for Medicaid, which Mitt Romney has endorsed, would be a more devastating hit to our threadbare social safety net.

Ryan's plan would turn Medicaid into a block-grant program, cap its funding – cutting $800 billion from the program over the next decade -- and then send it to the states to administer. The first problem is that states – presumably red states – would be free to make it harder to qualify, and the second is that the program wouldn't have the funding flexibility to enroll more people during economic downturns.

Medicaid serves 60 million Americans, about 10 million more than Medicare. Most people think Medicaid only serves the poor, but Medicaid is indespensible for the disabled, especially the severely diabled who require a lot of care. It also covers Medicare's out-of-pocket expenses for retirees with limited incomes.

6. Social Security

George W. Bush learned the hard way that privatizing Social Security is a great way to make voters hate you. That's why the Ryan plan is quite vague. It calls for "action on Social Security by requiring both the President and the Congress to put forward specific ideas and legislation to ensure the sustainable solvency of this critical program." The budget does tout "reforms that take into account increases in longevity, to arrest the demographic problems that are undermining Social Security's finances” – which sounds a lot like raising the retirement age.

7. State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP)

S-CHIP is likely to be hit hard under a Romney administration if he has a Republican Congress. Under the Ryan plan, S-CHIP could only increase by the rate of inflation, which again, is much slower than the projected rate of healthcare cost inflation. The CBO looked at Medicaid and S-CHIP together, and found that spending on the two programs would be about 70 percent less than currently projected by the year 2050 under Ryan's "roadmap."

8. The Rest

If the Republicans run the field in a big win, expect a lot of talk about a constitutional amendment capping federal spending at a given share of our gross domestic product. It will only be talk. It's a right-wing fantasy of a policy that can only be enacted with a constitutional amendment, which isn't going to happen.

That doesn't mean there won't be deep, deep cuts to non-defense discretionary spending under a Romney administration. Under the Ryan plan, non-defense discretionary spending would be on a downward trajectory leading to 39 percent less funding than currently projected by the year 2040. What is “non-defense discretionary spending”? Well, about 40 percent is education, training and research, and the rest is veterans' programs, various programs for low-income families, public safety and disaster response and the like. It's basically government, absent the Pentagon budget, Social Security and Medicare.

9. If Dems Have 40-50 Seats in Senate (With Ryan the Tie-Breaking Vote)

Although he has been vocal in his opposition in the past [10], there's a good chance that as Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, might embrace filibuster reform – dropping the number of votes needed to overcome a filibuster from 60 -- if the Dems hold a minority in the upper chamber.

Either way, one thing not to expect in this scenario is Senate Democrats turning the tables on the GOP and blocking their legislative agenda at every turn. That's a strategy the Republicans can undertake because their overarching narrative is that governent doesn't do anything right – it ultimately works to their benefit when they can “prove” that theory by rendering Congress incapable of action. Democrats still adhere to the idea that good governance can improve our society, so they can't play the same game and get away with it.

10. If Dems Hold Senate

If the Dems hold the Senate they will act as a firewall against the radical restructuring of the public sector promised by the Ryan budget.

That means maintaining the status quo, more or less, at least through 2014, with one painful exception. Cheered on by the Beltway media, the Democrats, having embraced the non-existent recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles commission (the chairmen drafted recommendations but the gang of 18 didn't vote to approve them), would almost certainly be willing to strike a “grand bargain” with President Romney along those lines.

The only question is whether Speaker Boehner (or Cantor?) would have any trouble coming up with the votes for a “balanced” deficit reduction deal – for a deal that raises some new revenues. If history is any guide, even the most ideological House Republicans will support a Republican president in such an effort.

Currently, non-defense discretionary spending is expected to hit its lowest level since 1962, and Simpson-Bowles would cut deeper still – with a 3:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases. That means programs that help the poor and middle class will be on the chopping block. Simpson-Bowles also called for a hike in the Social Security retirement age, despite the fact that life expectancies have only increased significantly for the well-to-do who don't rely on the program as heavily as working people and the poor.

The U.S. is still the richest nation in the world ( maybe 2nd, some economists think China passed us) yet Romney-Ryan would have half the population living in their own 3rd world like conditions. Conservatives talk about imgiinary death panels - the reality is that a conservative president and a conservative Congress will literary mean the deaths of millions of senior citizens and disabled. besides their wacky UnAmerican ideology, why are conservatives going to try and pass this kind of cruel legislation/ Because they do not want to rise taxes on billionaires who are complaining they're not making enough money. Seriously. These same billionaires and multimillionaires are also threatening to fire employees if they do not vote for immoral Mitt.

Paul Ryan Takes a Side in the War on Poverty: He's Against What Works

Condi Rice Pours Cold Water On ‘Benghazi-Gate’

The Republican propaganda channel and Anti-American Fox New's John Roberts Whitewashes Romney's Position On Auto Rescue

Mitt Romney Running Anti-China Trade Ad Against Obama Yet Has Money in China, Cayman Islands and Switzerland

Mitt Romney Running Anti-China Trade Ad Against Obama Yet Has Money in China, Cayman Islands and Switzerland

The tale of Asimco Technologies, an auto parts manufacturer whose plants dot eastern China, would seem to underscore Mitt Romney’s campaign-trail complaint that China’s manufacturing juggernaut is costing America jobs.

Nine years ago, the company bought two camshaft factories that employed about 500 people in Michigan. By 2007 both were shut down. Now Asimco manufactures the same components in China on government-donated land in a coastal region that China has designated an export base, where companies are eligible for the sort of subsidies Mr. Romney says create an unfair trade imbalance.

But there is a twist to the Asimco story that would not fit neatly into a Romney stump speech: Since 2010, it has been owned by Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by Mr. Romney, who has as much as $2.25 million invested in three Bain funds with large stakes in Asimco and at least seven other Chinese businesses, according to his 2012 candidate financial disclosure and other documents.

That and other China-related holdings by Bain funds in which Mr. Romney has invested are a reminder of how he inhabits two worlds that at times have come into conflict during his campaign for the White House.

As a candidate, Mr. Romney uses China as a punching bag. He accuses Beijing of unfairly subsidizing Chinese exports, artificially holding down the value of its currency to keep exports cheap, stealing American technology and hacking into corporate and government computers.

“How is it China’s been so successful in taking away our jobs?” he asked recently. “Well, let me tell you how: by cheating.”

But his private equity dealings, both while he headed Bain and since, complicate that message.

Mr. Romney’s campaign insists he has no control over his investments since they are held in a blind trust. That said, a confidential prospectus for one of the Bain funds, obtained by The New York Times, promotes China as a good investment for some of the same reasons that Mr. Romney has said concern him: “Strong fundamentals” like manufacturing wages 85 percent lower than what Americans earn, vast foreign exchange reserves and the likelihood that China will surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy.

“Accordingly, Bain Capital expects to see an increasing array of high-growth companies available for investment,” the prospectus says, noting the relative dearth of private equity in China.

Among the companies in which the Bain funds have invested is a global auto parts maker that is in the process of closing a factory in Illinois and moving most of the equipment and jobs to Jiangsu Province, where the Chinese government has built it a new plant; a Chinese electronics retailer accused by Microsoft of selling computers with pirated software; and a Hong Kong-based Chinese appliance maker that was sued for copying another company’s design for a deep-fat fryer.

Asked if Mr. Romney sees any conflict between his Bain investments in China and his policy positions, the campaign said: “Only the president has the power to level the playing field with China. No private citizen can do that alone.”

The campaign said Mr. Romney put his fortune, estimated at $250 million, in a “blind trust” when he became Massachusetts governor in 2003. “The trustee of the blind trust has said publicly that he will endeavor to make the investments in the blind trust conform to Governor Romney’s positions, and whenever it comes to his attention that there is something inconsistent, he ends the investment,” the statement said.

Should Mr. Romney become president, however, the structure of the trust would most likely not meet the federal requirements for independent management. It is managed by a Boston-based law firm, Ropes & Gray, that has a long history of doing legal work for both Mr. Romney and Bain Capital, including representing some of the same Bain funds in which it invested Mr. Romney’s money.

Mr. Romney’s trustee, R. Bradford Malt, who is chairman of Ropes & Gray, declined to comment.

Bain Capital declined to comment on specific investments, but said in a statement that its Chinese holdings “are consistent with the widely accepted principle that the private sector has a critical role to play in the continuing interdependence of the world’s economies.”

For many sophisticated and wealthy investors, as well as for ordinary workers invested in pension funds, China is a part of any diversified investment strategy. President Obama, a former Illinois state senator, has as much as $100,000 in a state retirement plan that contains shares of Sensata Technologies, the same auto parts company controlled by Bain that is closing its Illinois factory.

Last year, Mr. Romney’s trust sold its stake in an array of foreign holdings, including two Chinese state-owned companies: an oil company and a bank that have done business in Iran. But Mr. Romney continues to have money in Bain funds with sizable holdings in China.

He has as much as $250,000 in the Bain Capital Asia Fund and as much as $1 million each in Bain Capital Funds IX and X, all Cayman Islands entities used by Bain to make sizable investments in China, according to the 2012 candidate financial disclosures and confidential Bain prospectuses obtained by The Times through a public records request.

Among those funds’ holdings is $234 million that Bain invested in 2009 in Gome Electrical Appliances, a major Chinese retailer that was accused by Microsoft this year of selling computers with pirated software. In 2007, Bain’s Asia fund also invested $39 million in Feixiang Group, a Chinese producer and exporter of chemicals that is a designated “state high-tech enterprise,” making it eligible for tax breaks and other government incentives. Ropes & Gray represented Bain in the partial sale of Feixiang three years later for a 53 percent return on the fund’s investment.

The Asia fund withdrew from another deal in 2008 that could have proved politically embarrassing to Mr. Romney. After the Bush administration objected, Bain dropped plans to team up with a Chinese technology giant, Huawei, to buy 3Com, a network equipment maker that supplies software and equipment to the Pentagon and other federal agencies.

Republicans like to say that Americans are lazy and there are plenty of jobs out there. There are jobs in Asia where conservatives stash a lot of their money. What ever happened to America first. And how is it that Romney claims to be a person with values, yet has run televison ads that set a new low for lies and hypocrisy.

Koch Sends Pro-Romney Mailing to 45,000 Employees While Stifling Workplace Political Speech

The billionaire Koch brothers have found a new way to influence the 2012 election—preaching to employees.

Mitt Romney's New Attack Ad is Another Lie (Medicare) Filled With Empty Promises

Mitt Romney's New Attack Ad is Another Lie (Medicare) Filled With Empty Promises

The largest and clearest point of distinction in the presidential race is universal access to health insurance. If President Obama wins reelection, his law to provide access to the uninsured will go forward. If Mitt Romney is elected, it will be gutted, and Medicaid — the bare-bones coverage plan for the most desperately poor and sick — will face enormous additional cuts.

Commonwealth Fund has released a report comparing the stark choice. Estimating conservatively, Romney’s plan — to the extent that the report was able to piece it together — would increase the uninsured population to about 72 million, while Obama’s would cut it to 26 million (his plan does not cover illegal immigrants.) Probably more telling is Romney’s official campaign reaction:

    “Under ObamaCare, Americans have seen their insurance premiums increase, small businesses are facing massive tax increases, and seniors will have reduced access to Medicare services,” Ryan Williams, a Romney spokesman, wrote in an email to POLITICO. “The American people did not want this law, our country cannot afford this law, and when Mitt Romney becomes president he will repeal it and replace it with common-sense, patient-centered reforms that strengthen our health care system.”

Note that the statement is almost entirely an attack on Obamacare, with a brief clause at the end vaguely promising something good will take its place. But that something requires resources. Most people lacking insurance are either sick or have a sick family member or they're poor. If you want to cover them, you need to cough up some money. Obamacare undertook the massive political heavy lift of providing those resources, and that’s what Romney attacks — he included higher taxes on “small businesses” (i.e., people making more than $250,000 a year) and “reduced access to Medicare services” (i.e., cuts in reimbursements to Medicare providers, as a trade-off for providing them with 30 million new paying customers.)

Romney’s budget is premised on denying the government enough resources to fund any kind of universal health insurance program. His promise to cut tax rates by 20 percent would reduce tax revenue well below current levels. But even if you accept Romney’s arithmetically impossible claim that he can cut tax rates by 20 percent and raise the same tax revenue as the tax code does right now (and without raising taxes on the middle class), merely holding revenue at current, Bush-set levels would make any kind of universal coverage impossible.

Both campaigns describe the election as a stark choice, and this is correct. It’s a choice between universal health coverage for legal citizens and preserving the Bush tax cuts.

Only the elite like Romney think they people who make $250k plus per year are middle-class. Half the country has a household income under $52k. If someone making even $150k per year wants to cry that they're struggling, they need to learn some personal finance and spending discipline.

Romney Budget Proposals Would Necessitate Very Large Cuts in Medicaid, Education, Health Research and Other Programs

If Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan had values They Would Stop Their Medicare Lies

If Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan had values They Would Stop Their Medicare Lies

When formulating public policy, evidence should be accorded more weight than ideology, and facts should matter more than shibboleths. The Romney-Ryan plan for Medicare reform depends on assertions that are ideologically consistent. But the Republicans plan is not supported by the evidence and does not survive serious scrutiny.

Perhaps that's why the Romney campaign has been deliberately misrepresenting President Obama's Medicare record.

Mitt Romney characterizes the $716 billion of Medicare savings over the next 10 years, contained in the Affordable Care Act, as President Obama's "raid" on the Medicare program to pay for his health care program. This fear-mongering is simply untrue. These savings result from reforms to slow the growth of Medicare spending per enrollee - there are no cuts in Medicare benefits.

The reforms include both voluntary and mandatory changes in how providers deliver health care to promote better care coordination at lower cost, reward the quality and outcomes of services rather than their volume and reduce fraud and abuse.

For example, the law fosters the creation of accountable-care organizations, i.e., groups of providers willing to accept a flat fee for the integrated care provided to their Medicare patients. Accountable-care organizations represent a major step away from the unsustainable fee-for-service model that rewards the number of procedures rather than the quality of care.

Health experts believe that these organizations will significantly improve care and lower costs not just in Medicare but throughout the health care system. This belief is based on evidence, not ideology.

Medicare beneficiaries will also benefit from reforms that penalize hospitals for preventable re-admissions reflecting complications from previous procedures and that require hospitals to post their rates of medical errors, with penalties for those with the highest rates.

Both Governor Romney and Representative Paul D. Ryan have promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act and with it the reforms behind the $716 billion in Medicare savings (although Mr. Ryan duplicitously counts the savings from these reforms in his deficit-reduction plan). Medicare beneficiaries would be the losers. They would lose the benefits of better care at lower cost. They would lose the plan's expanded Medicare coverage for prevention benefits and prescription drugs, and they would be forced to pay higher premiums and co-pays as a result of faster growth in Medicare costs.

Same on Romney and Ryan for being yet more examples of the moral corruption and anti-Americanism of the Republican party.

Congratulations To Scott Brown (R-MS) For His Great Job of Deceiving Voters While Pretending To Be a "Nice guy"

Congratulations To Scott Brown (R-MS) For His Great Job of Deceiving Voters While Pretending To Be a "Nice guy"

Scott Brown has donated thousands of dollars to fellow Republican candidates after they sponsored legislation to redefine rape as “forcible rape”

As Rep. Todd Akin’s despicable comments on “legitimate rape” rightfully provoke outrage, the Massachusetts Democratic Party reminds voters that Republican U.S. Senator Scott Brown has given thousands of dollars to other Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate who would redefine rape as “forcible rape” and threaten women’s rights if, with Brown, they gain control of the U.S. Senate.
 
Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan also supports the bill.
 
Brown’s PAC, SCOTTPAC, has made campaign contributions to four House members, including three U.S. Senate candidates, after they cosponsored the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.
 
Scott Brown is supporting a Vice Presidential nominee and three of his fellow senate candidates who want to redefine rape, excluding protections to victims of violent sexual assaults. Brown donated to current Senate candidates Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT), and Rep. Rick Berg (R-ND), as well as Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA). The Republican nominee for Vice President, Paul Ryan, also cosponsored the bill.
 
“Scott Brown is supporting Republicans with a dangerous agenda for women throughout the Commonwealth and across the country,” said Massachusetts Democratic Party Executive Director Clare Kelly. “Brown is doling out his campaign cash to aid extreme conservatives who want to redefine ‘rape’ and roll back critical protections for women – and they will, if they gain control of the Senate and the White House.”
 
Scott Brown has made campaign contributions to the following supporters of the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act that would redefine rape:
 
Scott Brown's PAC contributed $5,000 to Jeff Flake for US Senate Inc[OpenSecrets.org, Accessed 8/20/12]
 
Scott Brown's PAC contributed $10,000 to Montanans for Rehberg [OpenSecrets.org, Accessed 8/20/12]
 
Scott Brown's PAC contributed $5,000 to Berg for Senate [OpenSecrets.org, Accessed 8/20/12]
 
Scott Brown's PAC contributed $10,000 to Denham for Congress [OpenSecrets.org, Accessed 8/20/12]

Many voters are just trusting people who take crafty con-men like brown for what they appear to be on the surface  - "nice". Most of histories scoundrels, thieves and con-men have had a pleasant persona, that is in fact part of what allowed them to get away with hurting so many people. Brown seems to have studied and mastered their techniques. Good for him, not so great for normal decent Americans.

Radical Republican Medicare Voucher Plan Remains Unpopular - Plurality Views Ryan VP Choice Negatively

Paul Ryan (R-WI) is not getting high marks for running an honorable campaign

Shades of Todd Akin(R-MO) 2012 Romney - Ryan Republican Platform To Advocate Abortion Ban Without Rape Exception

Shades of Todd Akin(R-MO) 2012 Romney - Ryan Republican Platform To Advocate Abortion Ban Without Rape Exception

Republican politicians have been falling over themselves to condemn from Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican Senate candidate in Missouri, who said Sunday that women who have experienced “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” The Romney-Ryan campaign called Akin’s comments “insulting, inexcusable and frankly wrong,” in spite of Ryan’s close working relationship with Akin on a number of radical anti-abortion and contraception bills. A Romney spokesperson added that the “Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.”

But embracing a rape exception for abortion rights would put the campaign at odds with the Republican Party’s longstanding platform, the newest iteration of which will be officially unveiled at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. In spite of the massive public outcry from the right over Akin’s comments, the official GOP platform committee drafted a provision Monday supporting a “human life amendment” that would outlaw abortion without specifying exemptions for rape or incest. The platform reads:

    Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.

Heading the committee is Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA), best known for his “mandatory ultrasound” law requiring any woman getting an abortion to undergo an unnecessary ultrasound. McDonnell also revealed his regressive position on women’s rights in his college thesis, which slandered working women, contraception, and “fornicators.” It’s no surprise, then, that under his guidance, the Republican Party will reaffirm its support for a constitutional amendment that would outlaw abortion and likely many forms of contraception.

In saying they would not oppose a rape exception, Romney and Ryan are both changing their tune. Romney said in 2007 he would be “delighted” to sign a bill banning all abortions, and Ryan has been staunchly anti-abortion in all cases, even attempting to restrict abortion access to victims of “forcible rape” only.

The human life amendment has been a tenet of the Republican Party platform since the dawn of the Reagan era in 1980. It has survived for 32 years and nine presidential elections, even after former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) pushed hard in 2000 for an explicit exception for rape and incest. McCain ceded the language to party officials during his own run in 2008.

One of the most backwards and Orwellian terms of our times is the conservative claim to being "pro-life". Is that supposed to be some kind of joke. They say they care about a bunch of cells in a woman's uterus, but once born they'll do more to see a golf course gets watered than to see that child has a good education, a job and medical care.

The Creators of the Financial Crisis Are Trying To Rewrite History

The record here is crystal clear: AIG and Hank Greenberg were charged by the New York Attorney General's Office—while I was attorney general—with fraud and deceptive accounting practices. The company settled for $1.64 billion, at the time the largest payment in history. Let me quote from the New York Times’ reporting of the settlement: "Under the settlement reached with the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the New York Attorney General's office, and the New York State Insurance Department, AIG acknowledged it had deceived the investing public and regulators." Further from the New York Times: "Mr. Greenberg, who was removed by AIG's board last march, remains under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice department and faces a lawsuit by the New York Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer."

After invoking his Fifth Amendment right to avoid testifying, Greenberg settled with the SEC for $15 million. And a federal judge, in a written opinion, found evidence that the conspiracy to deceive investors originated with Greenberg. Even CNBC covered Greenberg's settlement by saying "Ex-AIG CEO Greenberg settles fraud charges with SEC."

So Mr. Langone, despite your effort to talk about everything other than the facts of these cases, facts matter. These cases were absolutely correct, important, and went to the heart of the type of corporate fraud and defalcation that very nearly destroyed our economy.

Conservatives learned nothing from the financial collapse of 2007/2008. We need better regulation and fair enforcement. No exaggeration - check out most of the conservative web sites - they all claim it was caused by some vast conspiracy between Fannie May, Barney Frank and working class Americans. Because of course everyone on Wall Street is an angel who never does wrong.

The Depravity of Rep. Todd Akin(R-MO) Is Shared By Paul Ryan (R-WI) And Other Conservatives

It Isn’t Just Medicare: Don’t Forget Paul Ryan’s Vision for Medicaid

Someone needs to put Romney in a time machine and have his parents teach me what real values are. He just keeps lying about Obama and welfare reform. If he can only become president based on a blatant falsehood what does that say about his character, New Romney Welfare Ad Cites Newspaper That Says Its Welfare Reform Claims Have ‘Been Debunked’

Romney and Ryan Owe America An Apology For Their Immoral Medicare Lies

Romney and Ryan Owe America An Apology For Their Immoral Medicare Lies

Republican attacks on President Obama’s plans for Medicare are growing more heated and inaccurate by the day. Both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan made statements last week implying that the Affordable Care Act would eviscerate Medicare when in fact the law should shore up the program’s finances.

Both men have also twisted themselves into knots to distance themselves from previous positions, so that voters can no longer believe anything they say. Last week, both insisted that they would save Medicare by pumping a huge amount of money into the program, a bizarre turnaround for supposed fiscal conservatives out to rein in federal spending.

The likelihood that they would stand by that irresponsible pledge after the election is close to zero. And the likelihood that they would be better able than Democrats to preserve Medicare for the future (through a risky voucher system that may not work well for many beneficiaries) is not much better. THE ALLEGED “RAID ON MEDICARE” A Republican attack ad says that the reform law has “cut” $716 billion from Medicare, with the money used to expand coverage to low-
income people who are currently uninsured. “So now the money you paid for your guaranteed health care is going to a massive new government program that’s not for you,” the ad warns.

What the Republicans fail to say is that the budget resolutions crafted by Paul Ryan and approved by the Republican-controlled House retained virtually the same cut in Medicare.

In reality, the $716 billion is not a “cut” in benefits but rather the savings in costs that the Congressional Budget Office projects over the next decade from wholly reasonable provisions in the reform law.

One big chunk of money will be saved by reducing unjustifiably high subsidies to private Medicare Advantage plans that enroll many beneficiaries at a higher average cost than traditional Medicare. Another will come from reducing the annual increases in federal reimbursements to health care providers — like hospitals, nursing homes and home health agencies — to force the notoriously inefficient system to find ways to improve productivity.

And a further chunk will come from fees or taxes imposed on drug makers, device makers and insurers — fees that they can surely afford since expanded coverage for the uninsured will increase their markets and their revenues.

NO HARM TO SENIORS The Republicans imply that the $716 billion in cuts will harm older Americans, but almost none of the savings come from reducing the benefits available for people already on Medicare. But if Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan were able to repeal the reform law, as they have pledged to do, that would drive up costs for many seniors — namely those with high prescription drug costs, who are already receiving subsidies under the reform law, and those who are receiving preventive services, like colonoscopies, mammograms and immunizations, with no cost sharing.

Mr. Romney argued on Friday that the $716 billion in cuts will harm beneficiaries because those who get discounts or extra benefits in the heavily subsidized Medicare Advantage plans will lose them and because reduced payments to hospitals and other providers could cause some providers to stop accepting Medicare patients.

If he thinks that will be a major problem, Mr. Romney should leave the reform law in place: it has many provisions designed to make the delivery of health care more efficient and cheaper, so that hospitals and others will be better able to survive on smaller payments.

NO BANKRUPTCY LOOMING The Republicans also argue that the reform law will weaken Medicare and that by preventing the cuts and ultimately turning to vouchers they will enhance the program’s solvency. But Medicare is not in danger of going “bankrupt”; the issue is whether the trust fund that pays hospital bills will run out of money in 2024, as now projected, and require the program to live on the annual payroll tax revenues it receives.

The Affordable Care Act helped push back the insolvency date by eight years, so repealing the act would actually bring the trust fund closer to insolvency, perhaps in 2016.

DEFICIT REDUCTION Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan said last week that they would restore the entire $716 billion in cuts by repealing the law. The Congressional Budget Office concluded that repealing the law would raise the deficit by $109 billion over 10 years.

The Republicans gave no clue about how they would pay for restoring the Medicare cuts without increasing the deficit. It is hard to believe that, if faced with the necessity of fashioning a realistic budget, keeping Medicare spending high would be a top priority with a Romney-Ryan administration that also wants to spend very large sums on the military and on tax cuts for wealthy Americans.

Regardless of who wins the election, Medicare spending has to be reined in lest it squeeze out other priorities, like education. It is utterly irresponsible for the Republicans to promise not to trim Medicare spending in their desperate bid for votes.

THE DANGER IN MEDICARE VOUCHERS The reform law would help working-age people on modest incomes buy private policies with government subsidies on new insurance exchanges, starting in 2014. Federal oversight will ensure a reasonably comprehensive benefit package, and competition among the insurers could help keep costs down.

But it is one thing to provide these “premium support” subsidies for uninsured people who cannot get affordable coverage in the costly, dysfunctional markets that serve individuals and their families. It is quite another thing to use a similar strategy for older Americans who have generous coverage through Medicare and who might well end up worse off if their vouchers failed to keep pace with the cost of decent coverage.

Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan would allow beneficiaries to use vouchers to buy a version of traditional Medicare instead of a private plan, but it seems likely that the Medicare plan would attract the sickest patients, driving up Medicare premiums so that they would be unaffordable for many who wanted traditional coverage. Before disrupting the current Medicare program, it would be wise to see how well premium support worked in the new exchanges.

THE CHOICE This will be an election about big problems, and it will provide a clear choice between contrasting approaches to solve them. In the Medicare arena, the choice is between a Democratic approach that wants to retain Medicare as a guaranteed set of benefits with the government paying its share of the costs even if costs rise, and a Republican approach that wants to limit the government’s spending to a defined level, relying on untested market forces to drive down insurance costs.

The reform law is starting pilot programs to test ways to reduce Medicare costs without cutting benefits. Many health care experts have identified additional ways to shave hundreds of billions of dollars from projected spending over the next decade without harming beneficiaries.

It is much less likely that the Republicans, who have long wanted to privatize Medicare, can achieve these goals.

Romney and Ryan Lack The Courage and Morals To Honestly State Their Plans To Detroy Medicare

The Venal, Morally Corrupt Serial Liar and Corporate Socialist Mitt Romney Tries To Explain His Medicare Magic Trick

Mitt Romney offered a white board presentation during a news briefing in South Carolina on Thursday morning that sought to untangle the campaign’s contradictory message about Medicare. Over the last week, Romney and Ryan have twisted themselves into a pretzel to attack President Obama for “stealing” $716 billion from Medicare, while trying to explain why Paul Ryan included the savings in his FY 2013 budget. Romney had previously pledged to sign the document into law.

During the presentation, Romney tried to lay out the differences. Obama takes the money out of seniors’ Medicare Advantage plans and cuts payments to providers, causing some to lose his coverage, he argued. The program’s trust fund would go bankrupt by 2024, under Obama, and seniors would lose access to the care they need. His plan, alternatively, would preserve the program for current retirees and keep it solvent indefinitely.

ThinkProgress explains why this is wrong:



The Obamacare savings slow the growth of Medicare over the next decade by, in part: eliminating overpayments to private insurers in Medicare Advantage, reforming provider payments to encourage greater efficiency, tying reimbursements to improvements in economic productivity, and reducing fraud and abuse. The law does not impact patient benefits.

As a result of these savings, “growth in spending will be restrained” and the life of the Medicare trust fund is expanded by eight years, the government estimates. Sixteen million seniors are also benefiting from the savings by receiving preventive benefits without deductibles or co-pays and saving more than $3.9 billion on prescription drugs.

Should Romney restore the $716 billion — and unless he institutes other yet to be specified reforms — we would move back to the old system of overpaying private insurers and providers. He’d be re-inserting inefficiency back into the system, jeopardizing the benefits that seniors are currently enjoying, and shrinking the solvency of the Medicare trust fund from 2024 under current law to 2016.

 Romney vs. Ryan On Medicare’s Solvency

Via Twitter, David Phillippe pointed out today that Paul Ryan has directly contradicted Mitt Romney on how to extend the solvency of Medicare. At issue are cuts to Medicare included in both Obamacare and the House GOP budget engineered by Ryan, which now total $716 billion over the current budget window. Mitt Romney told CBS on Wednesday he would undo those cuts and restore Medicare’s payments to their prior level, and claimed this move would extend the program’s solvency:

    ROMNEY: The president’s cuts of $716 billion to Medicare, those cuts are going to be restored if I become president and Paul Ryan becomes vice president… My commitment is, if I become president, I’m going to restore that $716 billion to the Medicare trust fund so that current seniors can know that trust fund is not being raided and we’re going to make sure – and get Medicare on track to be solvent long-term on a permanent basis.

Meanwhile, Ezra Klein notes that back in July, Paul Ryan told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that the exact opposite approach would extend solvency:

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Your own budget, which Governor Romney has endorsed, would also have [$716 billion] in Medicare cuts.

    RYAN: Well our budget keeps that money for Medicare to extend its solvency. What Obamacare does is it takes that money from Medicare to spend on Obamacare.

Paul Ryan has the right of it — maintaining these cuts will extend the solvency of Medicare’s trust fund, while undoing the cuts as Romney insists will shorten its solvency. That’s because the cuts do not target seniors’ benefits, but rather the payment rates to health care providers. Overpayments to private insurers in Medicare Advantage are trimmed, overall provider payments are reformed to encourage efficiency, and reimbursements are tied to improved economic performance.

Since the securities flowing into the trust fund come from the payroll tax, which is not cut, the funding remains the same while the services-per-dollar those funds can purchase goes up. As a result, the solvency of Medicare’s trust fund is extended, and the gap over the next 75 years between Medicare’s funding and its expected payments shrinks.

Of course, Ryan’s implication that Obamacare uses the money from the cuts to pay for its own spending instead of extending Medicare’s solvency is also wrong. Trust fund accounting, which deals with Medicare’s solvency, is a conceptually separate framework from the unified budget accounting under which Obamacare’s spending falls. It’s perfectly feasible for the same cut to make room for new spending under the latter, while simultaneously improving Medicare’s solvency under the former. As Paul N. Van de Water put it, “That’s no different than when a baseball player hits a home run: it adds to his team’s score and also improves his batting average.”

So Romney contradicts Ryan on whether these cuts extend Medicare’s solvency, and both incorrectly claim Obamacare fails to do so. Welcome to politics.

Romney, Paul Ryan and sate level Republicans are in an absolute panic trying to get seniors to believe they are not going to cut Medicare. At the same time these gutless conservatives are lying about how Democrats and Obama strengthened the Medicare program.  No, “ObamaCare” Doesn't Cut Medicare

I’m sorry, but do Republican politicians have no shame? They’ve been running with the bold faced lie that “ObamaCare”, aka the Affordable Care Act, “cuts Medicare” since the day it was signed into law. Jesse Kelly pasted signs that “Gabby voted to cut $500 Billion Medicare” on his campaign signs in 2010. What do you do when a lie doesn’t stick? Tell a bigger lie. Now that Mitt Romney has selected Paul Ryan as his running mate Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” Budget Plan that converts Medicare into a voucher system that will result in much high medical cost for future retires has become a campaign issue. So Romney figures the best defense is a good offense and has dusted off the old “Obamacare cuts Medicare” lie and upped the ante – now he claims the Affordable Care Act “cuts Medicare” by an absurd $700 Billion.

Whatever amount you want to use, the Affordable Care Act doesn’t “cut Medicare” – it saves Medicare by reducing expenses. Let SeniorCorps.org explain:

    Despite the doom and gloom tactics of some members of congress and talking heads, the cuts will come from two prime sources; (1) eliminating Medicare fraud, and (2) a reduction in the amount of payments that are paid into Medicare Advantage programs that are offered by private insurance companies.

Medicare fraud cost the program an estimated $60 Billion every year. By beefing up the enforcement of fraud detection, the Affordable Care Act enables the Medicare Administration to significantly reduce this waste. As for Medicare Advantage program, that was a program passed by a Republican Congress under the theory that private business can always do something better than government. Enron anyone? Medicare Advantage benefits typically cost much more than benefits directly from Medicare. As my blogging colleague Denise in her Medicare and More blog explains so well in her Paul Ryan’s Medicare Plan article today, Medicare administrative costs average 3-4%, while private insurance companies’ administrative costs average around 15%. One reason is that the Medicare Administration doesn’t pay hundreds of millions in salaries & benefits to CEOs like the big insurance companies do. And private insurance companies don’t like to lose money, so they got the Republicans to include a “risk adjustment” factor into the Medicare Advantage program that guarantees the insurance companies will always get paid more than their actual cost. It doesn’t matter if their higher costs are from bloated administrative costs or actual benefits paid out to enrollees, they always get paid more. The Affordable Care Act remedies that by reducing and capping payments to insurance companies offering Medicare Advantage policies. The leaner, more efficient companies will do just fine and continue to offer policies, while the companies with bloated costs will abandon the market. Capitalism at its finest. And seniors don’t lose a single benefit – if they don’t fine find a Medicare Advantage policy that meets their needs they simply re-enroll to get those benefits directly from Medicare.

Mitt Romney's Double Backflip Medicare Lie

Mitt Immoral Elitist Romney's Double Backflip Medicare Lie. Romney Lies About His Medicare Plans Than Lies About Obama. Where Is Your Honor Mr. Romney?

Fact checkers call Mitt Romney's claim that the duo will preserve Medicare 'eye-popping' considering that Ryan calls for reworking it from the ground up.

    Romney vowed the duo would "preserve" Medicare, an eye-popping claim considering Ryan wants to transform the program from the ground up.

As to the predictable charge that President Obama will take $700 billion out of Medicare, they not only dispute this but say that "you could fill an arena with the facts this statement leaves out". It is shocking to see someone finally calling them out for what they are.

    ROMNEY: "Unlike the current president, who has cut Medicare funding by $700 billion, we will preserve and protect Medicare and Social Security and keep them there for future generations."

    THE FACTS: You could fill an arena with all the details left out in this statement. Ryan's reputation as a fiscal conservative is built on a budget plan that would overhaul the Medicare program and introduce a voucher-like plan that future retirees could use to buy private health insurance. Whether that results in a better or worse situation for Medicare recipients is a matter of debate. But under Ryan's plan, traditional Medicare would no longer be the health insurance mainstay, just one of many competing options.

They go on to give a hypothetical example of a senior under President Obama's plan and conclude that slowing the growth of spending is tantamount to a spending cut in Washington. They add the detail about the 'cuts' coming from Medicare Advantage. (How The Romney/Ryan Medicare Plan Would Affect Today’s Seniors)
They next criticize Romney's statement that he will 'preserve' Social Security leaves out the fact that he proposes changes such as increasing the retirement age and means testing the wealthy.

On Romney's bipartisan record as Governor of MA:

    THE FACTS: For a Massachusetts governor, balancing a budget is a requirement of state law.

    Ryan's claim that Romney didn't raise taxes to comply with Massachusetts' yearly balanced budget requirement is also misleading.

    And while Romney himself didn't raise income taxes, he benefited from a huge $1.1 billion tax hike passed by Democrats the year before he took office. It was responsible for roughly half of the deficit Romney helped cut in his first year in office.

They add that Romney, working with the Democratic Legislature,  raised hundreds of millions of dollars through new fees, but doesn't call that 'tax increases'.

On Romney/Ryan claims that they have provided specific, 'bold' solutions that don't duck the truth:

    THE FACTS: So far, vital specifics are missing from Romney as he pledges broad cuts in federal spending, but more money for the armed forces, and significant tax cuts. He proposes to cap federal spending at 20 percent of gross domestic product by the end of a first term, an ambitious goal that is not fleshed out with the painful choices that will be necessary for that to happen.

On Ryan's claims of President Obama's failures in his first 3 1/2 years in office:

    THE FACTS: Obama succeeded in achieving a stimulus plan, the automakers' bailout, his health care law, new rules in the financial services sector and more. But he had failures, too, a promised immigration overhaul and climate change legislation among them. Ryan's assertion that the Obama agenda "didn't make things better" is primarily a political judgment call. But no one seriously argues that the stimulus plan or the auto bailout made no difference at all. The question is whether such spending was worth the gains that were made.

    Obama's $800 billion-plus stimulus, enacted in February 2009, created both public-sector and private-sector jobs, even if not as many as its sponsors had hoped. The director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, estimated that the stimulus saved or created more than 3 million jobs. Princeton University economist Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, estimated that the stimulus, together with the bank bailout started by President George W. Bush and continued by Obama, saved or created more than 10 million jobs. An earlier CBO analysis estimated that stimulus trimmed the unemployment rate by 0.7 to 1.8 percentage points.

On Romney's claim that Ryan has shown an ability to work with members of both parties: Not exactly.

On the 'You Didn't Build That' meme:

    THE FACTS: Ryan, like Romney and scores of Republicans in recent weeks, has used comments Obama made at July 13 campaign appearance in Virginia against him. But the rhetorical jab takes Obama out of context. Republicans have seized on only part of Obama's quote — "If you've got a business, you didn't build that" — but the full quote makes clear Obama is talking about the conditions that help businesses and individuals succeed, such as teachers and infrastructure.

There is a lot more detail that fair use prevents me from repeating. The media rarely does such a thorough job of debunking falsehoods promoted by those running for office.  I urge everyone to go to the link, recopy in its entirety and paste it into an email to every rightwinger you know making these arguments, every on the fence family member and coworker,  retweet, and share as widely as possible. 

Drive-by Bigot Mitt Romney Calls Kettle Black

So it's come to this. Less 24 hours after airing his latest demonstrably false, racially-driven ad about welfare, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney accused President Obama of waging a "campaign of division and anger and hate." By any measure, Romney's is an amazing--and cynically conscious--case of projection. After all, with a wink and nod Romney has coddled, aided and abetted his Republican Party's birthers and bigots, its union-busters and gay-bashers, its Muslim-haters and misogynists and more. He's insulted people his backers proudly hate as well as many whose support they claim to seek.

Speaking at a rally in Chillicothe, Ohio, Governor Romney informed his audience that it is in fact Barack Obama who is "dividing us all in groups":

    "He demonizes some. He panders to others. His campaign strategy is to smash America apart and then cobble together 51 percent of the pieces. If an American president wins that way, we all lose," Romney said. "So, Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago, and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America."

That was an unfortunate choice of words. After all, Mitt Romney didn't just refuse to repudiate his Obama birth certificate fabulist Donald Trump. Cobbling together a majority, Romney announced, was what his candidacy was all about:

    "You know, I don't agree with all the people who support me and my guess is they don't all agree with everything I believe in," Romney said. "But I need to get 50.1% or more and I'm appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people."

No doubt, many of the people Trump claims "are screaming, 'Please don't give that up'" attended Romney's "Dine with the Donald" fundraiser. And if they missed that shindig, they might have joined Trump and Romney at the New York City birthday bash for Mitt's wife, Ann.

It is Ann Romney, by the way, who her husband says "regularly reports to me" about what American women care about. But when one of those women, Sandra Fluke, testified in March to Congress about contraception policy, right-wing storm-trooper Rush Limbaugh called her a "slut." But with a Republican nomination to win, Romney was too cowardly to cross his party's kingmaker:

    "I'll just say this, which is, it's not the language I would have used. I'm focusing on the issues I think are significant in the country today, and that's why I'm here talking about jobs and Ohio."

Five months later, Romney used the same dodge to avoid risking the ire of the Tea Party Islamophobes who dominate today's Republican Party.

 If Mitt Romney has values than so does every other scumbag on the face of the earth. Shame on Romney, Ryan and the radical anti-American conservative Republican movement for defining values as something base and repulsive to normal Americans.

Washington Post Columnist Charles Lane Thinks the Elderly Are Wealthy Because They Can Afford to Pay Off Their Mortgage. Conservatives suck at math as well.