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August 15, 2012 05:22 PM UTC

The Full Measure of Hypocrisy

  • 37 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

ABC News reports:

The Romney-Ryan campaign in its latest TV ad assails Obama for approving the cuts in 2010. “Obama has cut $716 billion dollars from Medicare,” says the narrator. “The money you paid for your guaranteed health care…is going to a massive new government program that’s not for you.”

Voters might be left with the impression that Romney and Ryan have both opposed the cuts. The truth is that Ryan himself endorses them in his signature budget plan – the same plan Romney has said he would sign as president if it reached his desk. [Pols emphasis]

Those Medicare savings – achieved through reduced provider reimbursements and curbed waste, fraud and abuse, not benefit cuts – appear in the House Republicans’ FY 2013 budget, which Ryan authored…

As the ad suggests, they don’t want the money to underwrite Obamacare, but for deficit reduction or other spending instead.

“We’re the ones who are not raiding Medicare to pay for Obamacare,” Ryan said tonight in his first solo interview with Fox News Channel’s Brit Hume.

As ABC’s Jake Tapper summarizes, Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan, the same one supported by Colorado’s Republican congressional delegation, fully repeals the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare), but keeps these same “cuts” from Medicare–not to pay for health care reform, but “deficit reduction.” As we’ve pointed out repeatedly in this space, the claim that Obamacare “cuts” Medicare at all has been regularly debunked by the principal media fact-checking sites. The problem with Ryan’s budget plan is not these waste-cutting and provider-side savings from Medicare that everyone seems to agree on—it’s Ryan’s proposal to privatize Medicare.

Folks, the compounded level of mendacity evident in this line of attack is difficult to adequately relay to anyone who doesn’t understand these details. For those who do, between the mutually-agreed nature of the “cuts” in question, the facts of the Ryan budget’s privatization of Medicare, and differences in what these supposed “cuts” would be used for–more health care vs. “deficit reduction”–we’re talking about deception at a truly astonishing level in the ad you see above.

Having said that, we’ve seen the Obama campaign’s response ad, and we’re not sure it’s sufficient to respond to the complex and interlocking falsehoods in play here. It seems to us something more is needed, and probably needs to come from media outlets raking in the campaign cash to run these ads. This is more than the usual back-and-forth about not being truthful in a campaign ad. This deserves, perhaps requires, nonpartisan repudiation.

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37 thoughts on “The Full Measure of Hypocrisy”

  1. Really, why won’t Obama discuss the facts with the American citizen?

    Maybe he and Joe “put you blackfolk back in chains” Biden should counter this add. You know talk about how successful you’ve been at bending the cost curve.

    Face it folks, Obama’s failed to lead and it shows.

    1. Obama HAS failed to lead. Obama offers band-aids and Medicare CUTS when the country needs solutions. Romney-Ryan will not duck the hard issues, they will lead. This country needs some tough love. It’s time to stop living in denial with Obama and Colorado Pols…

        2. Paul Ryan is a part of the Romney ticket now. Romney’s plan is not the same as Ryan’s plan. Romney has said that he would not cut $700 billion from Medicare if elected, and Ryan says he is following Romney’s plan.

          The ABC story actually says this, more selective quoting from Colorado Pols is why you don’t know the whole story.

          4. It has to really hurt when your candidate comes out and destroys the talking point of the day:

            From Politico.com (from a local TV interview):

            ROMNEY: Actually Paul Ryan and my plan for Medicare I think is the same –  if not identical it’s probably close to identical.

      4. from the camp of St. Ronald: “Mr. Ryan’s plan is devoid of credible math or hard policy choices. And it couldn’t pass even if Republicans were to take the presidency and both houses of Congress. Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan have no plan to take on Wall Street, the Fed, the military-industrial complex, social insurance or the nation’s fiscal calamity and no plan to revive capitalist prosperity – just empty sermons.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08…

  2. http://www.redstate.com/califo…

    • This line of attack does open up the Ryan budget to more scrutiny as it includes the same cuts (with the exception that the Ryan budget allows the cuts to be offset by finding the savings elsewhere)
    • The $700 Billion Obama Stole is a weak pivot point, since Ryan does the same thing. It might work for a while, but they can’t use this for three months. No way.
    • This fogging tactic, if employed by the right through November, should keep the formerly self-confident Obamites off balance and forced to explain themselves for a change.
    • Great ad, but to be fair I read in the Wall Street Journal that the Ryan plan keeps these cuts but instead of allocating them to Obamacare, gives them to job creators in the form of tax cuts (Which Romney continues to run away from which is amazingly stupid). But we really do need to cut Medicare, we need to be honest, we can’t have some giant safety hammock for everyone, we just can’t afford it.
    • This isn’t the time to be “fair”

      It’s the time to win an election.

      Do you have any doubts about which candidate would increase or decrease entitlements the most while in office?

    1. so it shouldn’t be that hard explaining the difference between cuts that don’t come out of your healthcare benefits and cuts that come by transferring $6500 dollars of the expense for your care back to you while giving you nothing but an $8000 coupon  toward a years worth of your own insurance.

      Also they claim that priority one will be overturning ACA. Just what kind of private insurance coverage is a senior with a history of cancer or heart disease going to be able to get with their $8000 coupon?  And health care costs will continue to go up a lot faster than any increases you can expect in your next coupon.

      Not hard to explain stuff. Maybe that’s why cable is full of segments showing Ryan and Romney not offering any details when asked about their economic plan including the medicare part and the part about how it doesn’t decrease the deficit.  If they tell the truth it’s clear it’s pretty much a plan that benefits the top .01% and you need more votes than that.

  3. Telling people that Obama rather than Romney/Ryan is going to cut their Medicare is a joke. All it does it put even more of a spotlight on the “marvelous” (to quote Romney) Ryan plan to destroy Medicare altogether.

    Contrary to what Romney and Ryan believe, the American electorate isn’t that dumb.

    The ad will fail, and will rightly open up Romney and Ryan to charges of outright lying and deception.  

  5. this is the only hope the GOPers have of avoiding writing off Florida completely.  Once those old folks get wind of the R-Ayn/R-Money budget plans for them (. . . “Oh, and screw your Grandkids you rode in on, too”) it’ll be game over in the Dangle State.

    Team Willard’s only hope is to confuse the issue and pray to Moroni that people close their ears to the facts before the reporting begins . . .  

    2. Heard some of the old people interviewed by NPR at his talk in St. Augustine the other day.  They were buying right into the destruction of Medicare.  

      I “loved” the old woman that said it’s going to take sacrifice to save Medicare, and Americans are good at sacrificing.  Overlooking the latter myth, this woman would have no sacrifice, it would be her kids.

      Low information voters are bread and butter of the Republicans.  

      1. who said she knew Romney and Ryan and knew they’d protect Medicare.

        Um, ma’am?  Please read the section of the Ryan budget which says “we’re replacing Medicare with vouchers for private insurance, and decreasing the value of those vouchers over time”.

          2. your pimps are pushing you gals pretty hard to get that trick out on the streets this afternoon . . bet you’re gonna be sore in the morning.

          3. What was this house roll call about? http://clerk.house.gov/evs/201…

            Wasn’t that the following bill? http://themiddleclass.org/bill…

            It sounds like GOP boosters are trying to have it both ways here.  On the one hand claiming that we need to elect more Republicans in order to make plans like this pass.

            On the other hand, failing to take responsibility and downplaying their actions with a “it never passed”.

            Which is it?  Need to elect more GOP to make these things pass or the GOP doesn’t really take responsibility since this didn’t pass?

          4. While you’re at it. How about a link to the Romney economic plan.

            Look, a Dream is not a Plan. Aphorisms about cutting taxes do not make a plan. Underwear Gnomes Logic is not a plan.

            Libertarian Unicorns don’t exist.

            1. – separate from Ryan?

              – economic plan

              –  vet issues

              – status of Afghan occupation

              – Guantanamo

              – Invading IRan

              – Invading N. Korea

              – secret, illegal wars in central and South America

              – do black people have  soul?

              – Do women?

              – How many houses do you own?

              – where was your voting residence  in 2004? 2008?  Tax residence?

            2. It’ll be all better when he’s Prez.  Details are proprietary and not necessary for you to know.  

              You didn’t need his tax returns so why would you need ugly details on his 100% guaranteed results for more jobs and better times.

              To Believe is all you need!

              This is called LEADERSHIP people!

              This message sponsored by the Romney/Ryan Traveling Medicine Show.  Our magical economic elixir is available at a store near you.

          5. So give him Romney’s plan and shut him up. We’ve got Romney’s laughable budget “plan” (Sort of. And Ryans’s budget isn’t a plan; it’s a pitiful ideological screed.) but what about his health care reform plan? Or Ryan’s? Either one? Or, please, give dirt nap their “jobs” plans. Any plan–for anything. You got it, cough it up.

            Admit it, Repug: Your team’s scared shitless to put out a real plan for anything, for the American voter to consider. (Except your Liberty to Impose Your Religion on Everybody Else Plan, your Women’s Subjugation Plan, your Save Ignorant People From Evil Fags Plan, your Pander to the Troops and Support Military-Corporate Capitalism But Screw the Vets Plan, your Big Tent With Separate Bathrooms or People of Color Plan and your Wave the Flag But Fuck America Plan.)

            Why? Because your only real plan (which you think is your private little masturbatory fantasy, ArapaGOOP, but we’ve caught you in the act) is to impose upon America an ever-richer plutocratic dictatorship supported by troops of beguiled religious know-nothings.

            But if Romney/Ryan does really have any sort of economic plan you’d care to discuss, please present it. Soon. Fidel’s dirt nap is driving me nuts with his repeated requests of you for a cogent Repug plan.

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