Ryan and The GOP: Just another 80s Boy Band to Me

Ok, I hate to say (really I don’t) but I was pro-phetic like pro football regarding my reference to Obama as being the New Tricky Dick in My post this past Tuesday. Yep like Jimmy “Super-Fly” Snuka, he dropped kicked Paul Ryan and the Republicans. I could not write this on Wednesday, since I wanted to re-read the Ryan budget again to make sure gloating was appropriate. But like I said, I was prophetic.

In Memphis there is one colloquialism that aptly describe what the President did. 1] He pulled his player card.

Now trying to keep it simple, after reading House Budget Committee Chairman Ryan’s budget, what sticks out is that the GOP's cuts come from overturning Obama Care, which would save $725 billion by repealing the subsidies folk would have get to help buy health insurance. In addition, Ryan would drastically change Medicare. Instead of the government reimbursing doctors and hospitals for certain medical services, seniors would purchase a private health care plan and the Feds would then pay the private insurer up to a specified amount. The so-called "Path to Prosperity" would also lower the highest individual and corporate tax rates from 35 percent to 25 percent but neglects to outline which specific tax credits would be eliminated (maybe this is why he was a couple-a-few hundred billion off in his math concerning both cost of interest and Medicare on speculative budget reduction.

Now I can’t be mad at the last one because Obama has not mentioned any specifics either, but he does note the logic in the necessity of taxes, especially for the big Whigs inclusive of individual CEO’s, corporations and their owners. Thus the player card was pulled since Ryan and the GOP (sounds like a 1980s boy band) plainly just wants to use the deficit as an excuse to cut taxes for the rich.

Obama really rocked them with the player card (prescription drug cost reductions in Medicare Part D - ingenious I must admit. This is a real saving compared to Ryan’s proposal which only obtains such from budget cuts. I mean, in my family, I can stop spending as much on going out, but if I have to use it to deal with increasing gas and food prices, what do I actually save? Nothing. The boy band I referenced earlier must think I (representative of Americans, especially the under employed) am stupid. More than 60 percent of Ryan’s cuts come from programs that serve the needy, minorities and the poor specifically.

This is the first time Obama has really impressed me as well as show that he does have gonads. Truth is that Ryan’s plan won’t control costs but rather shift them to the poor and elderly folk who need the most with respect to medical care for example for the latter. Not to mention he states his plan would reduce unemployment to 4 percent in 2015 and 2.8 percent in 2021, figures that America has not experienced since the 1950s

For as Obama stated in his speech: “Around two-thirds of our budget is spent on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and national security. Programs like unemployment insurance, student loans, veterans' benefits, and tax credits for working families take up another 20%. What's left, after interest on the debt, is just 12 percent for everything else. That's 12 percent for all of our other national priorities like education and clean energy; medical research and transportation; food safety and keeping our air and water clean.”

The Ryan budget shows me that as a nation, we need to invest more in education, especially basic math.