Thursday, August 4, 2011

New Details Emerging About the Debt Deal

Here's some stuff Rush had to say about the debt ceiling today - but he's really just reiterating what he said yesterday, about Medicare. Recipients of Medicare don't get their benefits cut, the providers, who are practically doing work for free now, are getting the costs they can charge, cut.
Now, as to the Wall Street Journal, my friend Andy McCarthy was reading it today, said that his jaw hit the floor when reading an editorial in the Wall Street Journal today. Andy just learned today that in the debt deal when this commission, if the cuts are not made, if the triggers are triggered, you know, the Medicare cuts in this deal I pointed out yesterday, they are not cuts to recipients, they are cuts on providers. The Wall Street Journal just figured this out. The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today and they are all upset because it immunizes the program's swelling millions of beneficiaries from cuts and cost sharing. Instead, any purported Medicare slashing from the across the board $1.2 trillion in cuts if the vaunted super committee deadlocks, which it will, will be born again by providers. Remember I told you this yesterday, Snerdley. A lot of people overlooked this.

People just automatically assume Medicare cuts equals Medicare cuts to recipients. No, it's Medicare cuts to providers who are already facing reimbursements that barely make it worth staying in business. Now, remember this. 'Cause I have to point this out. The Wall Street Journal last week was cheering this deal. The Wall Street Journal last week was cheering this debt deal, and they were attacking conservatives like me and others, we were being called hobbits by the Wall Street Journal for opposing it.

So now all of a sudden the Wall Street Journal has an editorial, "Oh, no, oh, no, the Medicare cuts are to providers?" I.e., the people that read the Wall Street Journal. It's a minor little thing but here you have the Wall Street Journal, they're part of the inside the Beltway conservative intelligentsia, and they're pushing this deal and they're pushing it and they're calling people that oppose it hobbits and so forth, and now today they've got an editorial, "Well, wait a minute," raising red flags about the very deal they were supporting. When all this hypocrisy rears its head, I, El Rushbo, love being the one to point it out.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: USA Today: "The hard-won, last-minute agreement to raise the debt ceiling and cut the deficit gets low ratings from Americans, who by more than 2-1 predict it will make the nation's fragile economy worse rather than better." Headline: "Thumbs Down on the Debt Ceiling Deal." "The dyspeptic view may reflect less an assessment of the plan's particulars than dismay at the edge-of-the-cliff negotiations to reach it." That's BS. We are smarter than that. We're not upset at "the edge-of-the-cliff negotiations." We're upset at the substance. The American people are upset at the substance of this, and that's what this poll proves.

"In a USA Today/Gallup Poll taken hours after the Senate passed and President Obama signed the deal, 46% disapprove of the agreement; 39% approve. Only one in five see it as a step forward in addressing the federal debt. The dyspeptic view may reflect less an assessment of the plan's particulars than dismay at the edge-of-a-cliff negotiations to reach it. 'Most people assume that whatever came out of this horrible process was pretty crappy,' says Joseph White, a political scientist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland who studies budget policy. The sour reaction underscores why negotiations were so difficult, says Stan Collender, a former staffer on the House and Senate budget committees..."

No. The sour reaction underscores how much people disapproved of the substance of this. It is really, really interesting, folks, that our representatives represent us so poorly. We really have come down now to the basic "taxation without representation." You look at it. Poll after poll, election after election shows that we are not being well served by our elected ones. Every poll shows that the majority of the American people disapprove of the policies of either the administration or what's coming out of Congress. They are governing against the will of the people, and every poll shows it. We are the majority! We've made a decision on the type of government we want.

The problem is, our politicians are ignoring it and giving us the kind of government they want -- and I'm including some in the Republican Party in this, too. This is not just aimed at the Democrats. "The poll finds some paradoxes. •Though Tea Party conservatives succeeded in setting the parameters of the deal, supporters of the Tea Party are among those most unhappy with the outcome: 22% of Tea Party supporters approve of the agreement, compared with 26% of Republicans and 58% of Democrats. •Though Obama and congressional Democrats failed in their efforts to include higher taxes on the wealthy in the plan, Democrats were among those who rate it most highly.

"Two-thirds of moderate Democrats and six in 10 liberal Democrats approve of the deal. None of the policymakers involved gets high ratings for their role, although Obama's standing is the least bad: 41% approve, 49% disapprove," and that's the best -- and that's only 'cause he had nothing to do with it. That's only because Obama never announced a plan. If Obama had announced what he really wanted here, his polls would be in the tank on this as well as everybody else's. "Thumbs Down on the Debt Ceiling Deal." USA Today/Gallup. The vast majority American people disapprove, wanted no part of it.


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My Schedule of Regular Posts:
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday throughout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

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