Medicare

So, the GOP wants to cut Medicare.

Medicare costs are a huge long term problem, and if the cuts are responsible, I could see them being of some merit.

The problem is that the GOP has not shown much inclination towards responsibility.  They have - for the past two years especially - been absolutely draconian in their attitudes towards the poor and the middle class.  See Wisconsin.  See their desire to gut student loans.  See any fiscal proposal they have floated recently.

The GOP is still in thrall to the Magical Market Fairy who makes everything OK with a wave of its Invisible Hand Wand.

My guess is that the GOP plan will eliminate programs that honestly help people and wind up funneling money to private insurers.  They have already compared it to Medicare Plan D - a plan that was a boon to private insurers and Big Pharma but disastrous to Medicare and confusing to seniors.

Put simply, I bet this plan sucks.

The good news is that if - by some miraculous accident - there is a nugget of gold in the coming mound of feces - Obama will likely embrace it.  Simultaneously, the Democrats running for Congress can use it to recapture the House and Senate.  Given that any plan for fiscal sanity involves raising taxes, we are going to need a Democratic Congress to start balancing budgets.

So if Ryan and Cantor have indeed found a legitimate way to control rising Medicare costs without putting people in financial risk, I think Obama will work with them.

Finally, it's worth remembering that no effort will succeed in reducing Medicare's long term costs more than the full implementation of ACA.  Remember, the Death Panels?  That was what the GOP called the cost control methods in ACA.

So, when Ryan says, this could put us at electoral risk if the Democrats lie about it, you can feel free to fling poo at him.