The elimination of Medicare and Medicaid

Representative Paul Ryan, House Budget Committee Chairman, proposed yesterday what will become the dismantling of Medicare and Medicaid as we know it.
His plan proposes to eliminate the program and its place offer vouchers to senior citizens. He said that Medicare will be available to people 55 and older, but that, and I quote “the government should stay out of healthcare”.
What he is proposing is a fixed amount so that seniors can go out and purchase health coverage. What he is keeping in mind is that healthcare has had increases far above the inflation. That means that eventually, down the road, senior will have to choose between food and healthcare.
These are the same people who were saying that the healthcare reform that President Obama was proposing would kill granny.
Rep. Ryan as says that the problem is that the federal government spends too much, and not that it taxes the wealthiest and corporation not enough.
He is proposing together with the elimination of Medicare and Medicaid, programs that help the middle class and poor, the reduction of taxes for the wealthiest and corporations to a 25%, instead of the 35% that “they are paying today”. The reason I used quotation marks is because they do not really pay that percentage. They find loopholes to avoid their fair share of taxes.
Rep. Ryan is not interested in eliminating the welfare state for corporations that we have right now. He does believe of eliminating subsidies to oil companies. Companies that have made over 1 trillion in profit in the last ten years.
He does not believe in the reduction of the biggest waste in the federal budget, the Department of Defense. The 2011 budget for defense is 750 billion dollars. There is plenty of waste there.
The U.S. has not been able to get out of the war economy that brought the country from the depression during WW II.
After President Clinton reduced the size of the Pentagon, came the Bush-Chenney administration and almost doubled the budget that President Clinton had. We will have spent 3 trillion dollars by the time we are finished with Iraq, a war not only based on lies, but also unnecessary and that has not been paid.
After republicans will try to impose the demolition of the healthcare system in this country they will also try to sell us the idea of the elimination of Social Security.
And all this is under the premise that the country cannot afford these programs.
The beginning of the government having problems with its finances started with the Reagan administration when taxes on the wealthiest and corporations were reduced in half.
Republicans are now threatening a shutdown of government. This may be the only way that people who voted for these members of congress wake up and realize the mistake they made.