We all saw this coming didn't we?
pro·jec·tion
-The act of projecting or the condition of being projected.
-The attribution of one's own attitudes, feelings, or suppositions to others
-The attribution of one's own attitudes, feelings, or desires to someone or something as a naive or unconscious defense against anxiety or guilt.
The Republicans announced their 2012 budget plan today, and the cornerstone of the plan is to completely destroy Medicare and Medicaid as we know them.
The plan is to privatize Medicare so that people over the age of 65 can buy private insurance, and convert Medicaid into a block-grant system which would leave states up the shit-creek without a paddle when the shit hits the fan.
(Reuters) - Republicans in the Congress on Tuesday adopted a bold but politically risky stance that promises to launch a bitter battle over spending when they unveiled a 2012 budget plan that ultimately would cut benefits in popular government-run healthcare for the elderly and poor. [...]
The plan also comes with some popular tax-cut proposals, including paring top rates for individuals and businesses to 25 percent from 35 percent.
The Republicans spent a lot of time in 2009 and 2010 accusing President Obama of "gutting Medicare."
Remember? He was on a personal mission to kill your granny and kick your dog.
Imagine my lack of surprise upon seeing the parade of extra-serious, empty suits making the rounds today to promote their new plan after repeatedly projecting their inner most desires onto the Democrats during the healthcare reform debate.
WASHINGTON – Republicans came out strongly Tuesday in favor of a plan that cuts deep into Medicare and turns it over to the private market in ten years. They're the same Republicans who spent 2009 and 2010 hammering Democrats for "cutting Medicare" (although the cuts didn't affect benefits).
"We need to strengthen Medicare and preserve it for today's seniors and future generations, not slash it," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on the Senate floor in October 2009, arguing that Democrats were insistent on "cutting Medicare" in the sweeping health care law enacted last March.
Mitch McConnell was far from alone today -- here's current RNC Chairman Reince Priebus
Got that? According to Priebus, Ryan's plan is "serious as a heart attack!" It's the Republicans that are serious!
Serious serious serious!
Speaker Boehner and House Majority Shitkicker Eric Cantor also joined the chorus.
"Chairman Ryan and the members of the Budget Committee have done an excellent job putting together a budget worthy of the American people," said House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). "I hope every American concerned about our country’s future will take a look at it."
"Our budget will help spur job creation today, stop spending money we don’t have, and lift the crushing burden of debt that threatens our children’s future."
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) chimed in: "Our vision is reflected in this fact-based budget for America's future. House Republicans will lead where the President has failed by reducing spending and addressing the biggest drivers of our debt, our insolvent entitlement programs.
Yes. A budget "worthy of the American people." And by "American people" he means the richest 400 who own more wealth than the bottom 150 million of us. But don't worry, apparently its all a part of the plan to create jobs.
The Hypocrisy-Projection-Meter is off the scales.
ThinkProgress brings us these excellent quotes from the mouths of John Boehner and Eric Cantor
SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH): “Democrats are peddling talking points that are directly contradicted by their actual legislation. They are holding a press conference to pat themselves on the back for ‘protecting’ Medicare, even though their government takeover of health care bill would cut seniors’ Medicare benefits by $500 billion. Are you kidding me?” [10/30/09]
MAJORITY LEADER ERIC CANTOR (R-VA): “It’s paid for on the backs of seniors, which cuts Medicare by over $500 billion.” [Fox and Friends, 11/4/09]
Projection is thy name.
Here's Paul Ryan's best attempt yet to not appear as a sunday-school teacher. I'd give him a 5 out of 10.
“Our budget saves and strengthens these programs,” Ryan says in the video, explaining the magnitude of the debt crisis. “It fixes the flaws in Medicare and Medicaid that have made rising costs nearly impossible to check.”
The lies and hypocrisy are waist-deep now, but I have to take issue with another thing, and that is cost-checking. Because the Republicans are adamantly opposed to studying cost-effectiveness.
The key to reducing the impact that Medicare and Medicaid will have on the national debt over the next several decades is studying which treatments work, which ones don't, and which ones are the most cost-effective. This is what Republicans referred to as "Death Panels" during the healthcare debate. Commissions set up to study the effectiveness of different procedures.
Paul Krugman explains.
Ask yourself, what do we have to do to control Medicare costs? We can save some money, maybe a lot, by reforming payment systems so that providers are paid for overall treatment rather than on a fee-for-service basis. But over the long term, the fundamental issue is going to be to decide what Medicare will and won’t pay for. We need, as Henry Aaron has often said, to learn how to say no. [...]
So how are you going to make decisions about what not to do? Um, you need good information about which medical interventions work, and how well they work: comparative effectiveness research.
And no, that information isn’t already out there: doctors know surprisingly little about how effective procedures are relative to one another.
Why, then, are Republicans opposed to this kind of research? Some of it is sheer stupidity and/or anti-intellectualism — hey, those researchers are probably atheistic Democrats, you know.
"Keep your government hands off my Medicare!"
Given the scope of what Republicans are proposing in their 2012 budget, it's exceedingly difficult to look at current budget negotiations as anything other than an utter farce.
The Tea Party won't accept $33 Billion in cuts while their 2012 budget proposal contains $6 Trillion? And lest we not forget -- in the middle of all of this, their 2012 proposal also cuts taxes by another 10% from 35% to 25%.
I don't think beating the long-ago-dead horse is required to explain how ridiculous that is, but I will say that it basically invalidates every single utterance of the word "serious" that emanates from Republican mouths.
I don't know what the Democratic strategy in response to these proposals will be, but I would suggest hitting the Republicans over the head with it from now until November 2012.