Medicare

National Catholic Reporter disses Paul Ryan, one of the church's own

September 20, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

Michael Sean Winter, blogging at the National Catholic Reporter, scoffs at Rep. Paul Ryan's idea that asking rich people to pay their fair share of federal taxes amounts to "class warfare":

Federal Warning About Northern Wisconsin Mining Reviews Makes The Journal Sentinel

September 17, 2011 by The Political E...

Broad coverage and awareness of this vital environmental issue is needed, as pro-WMC FitzWalkerStan hot-heads in the legislature seemed likely to run off and do something dumb and counter-productive to get a 20-mile strip mine underway with little regard for Northern Wisconsin and the Lake Superior watershed.

Dumb, as in, dumb, again. (See: Voter ID law, abandonment of legislative rule-making reviews, concealed carry permissions, collective bargaining wipe out, Medicare restrictions, unemployment comp delays, phosphorus-rule suspension, etc., et al, ad infinitude, ad museum.)

The federal warning has been around since August, with little publicity.

I first wrote about it and posted a link to the warning letter on September 2.

Again on 9/18, so let's keep it going.

Rick Perry and Paul Ryan; a match made in heaven

September 17, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

They say people find each other.

Rick "Ponzi Scheme" Perry has signed on to the Paul Ryan plan to end Medicare as we know it and replace it with a voucher-type system that will cost seniors much more for health care -- if they can afford it at all.

Isn't calling that "Medicare" when it's really something quite different a bait and switch con job? It sure seems like it.

No word on whether Ryan reciprocated by endorsing Perry's call for states that don't like what Congress does to secede from the union.

More at The Paul Ryan Watch

"Why I left the Republican cult": The ultimate self-interest of a working man in peril from the GOP

September 4, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

I left as an act of rational self-interest. Having gutted private-sector pensions and health benefits as a result of their embrace of outsourcing, union busting and "shareholder value," the GOP now thinks it is only fair that public-sector workers give up their pensions and benefits, too. Hence the intensification of the GOP's decades-long campaign of scorn against government workers. Under the circumstances, it is simply safer to be a current retiree rather than a prospective one.

If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your Social Security and Medicare, I am here to disabuse you of your naiveté. They will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be "forced" to make "hard choices" - and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked.

-- MIKE LOFGREN, who retired on June 17 after 28 years as a Congressional staffer. He served 16 years as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees.