No bones about it, last night’s New York result was a defeat for the Republicans - period. Had Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-gadfly Jack Davis won 20% of the vote – or even 15% – perhaps some solace could have been taken for the GOP. Instead, he only won 9%, meaning just about every would-be Republican voters was gleaned from him. Tellingly, he did worst in the home county of the Democrat who won – Kathy Hochul. Hochul took 48% of the vote as it is; the idea that over 80% of Davis’ votes would have gone to Republican Jane Corwin is nonsense. The Republicans lost. Full stop.
That said, Hochul and the Democrats revealed their strategy – scare everyone over 50 to death on entitlements – with more than a year to go until Election Day 2012. That gives the GOP time to make adjustments, and as any NBA or NFL fan will tell you, adjustments decide the game. Whether the Republicans will make the correct adjustments is another issue. We shall see.
Moreover, we’ve already been down this road with upstate New York. Lest we forget, the Democrats took New York’s 23rd from the GOP in 2009. In fact, the Dems kept NY-20 in 2010, and we saw what that meant to the rest of the country.
Finally, it should be noted that this district in western New York had been electing pro-life Republicans to Congress for over 40 years (Jack Kemp, Bill Paxon, Tom Reynolds, and Chris Lee). Corwin, by contrast, was not a pro-lifer. In this district, that almost certainly hurt her.
Cross-posted to Virginia Virtucon
[...] Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal [...]
Here’s the problem. Medicare is a program that is going to be in big trouble if we don’t act.
But Medicare is not the 1.5 trillion deficit and we are being told that we must in essence kill Medicare to save the budget which is a total lie.
And people are starting to catch on to it.
Why the Republicans are seen to be all hot to kill Medicare – they have walked away from the other problem – the 1.5 trillion deficit that we have right now.
The real question here is WHY is this the preferred Republican strategy in the first place?
If they had INCLUDED the 1.5 trillion deficit as just as critical to deal with as Medicare – they may have convinced people but their sole focus on Medicare at the same time they are running away from the 1.5 trillion deficit is a loser.
The Republicans must have a congenital problem on this.
The Republicans used to be the adults in fiscal conversations… now they are boobs.
“we are being told that we must in essence kill Medicare . . .”
That’s ridiculously inaccurate, Larry.
I do agree that Ryan’s proposal would go over much better if it balanced the budget some time within the foreseeable future (as the Republican Study Committee budget does).
DJ – you’re a smart person.
Why are the Republicans focusing so hard on Medicare while ignoring the 1.5 trillion deficit?
Why is this the primary perception of Ryan’s “Road to Prosperity”?
He balances the budget in 2040 with some really wild assumptions but he wants to essentially kill Medicare right now.
It’s not an “entitlement” problem RIGHT NOW anyhow. SS and Medicare Part A are not in terrible shape right now – but I admit they will be if we don’t act soon – but we’ve done this over the 60+ years of the program as it went from a 1% FICA to a 15.3% FICA (and changes to benefits).
Medicare Part B is a 200+ billion bur in the current budget and it gets worse but we have a 1.5 trillion deficit and even if we killed Medicare – we’d still have well over a trillion dollar deficit.
WHERE is the Republican PLAN to fix THAT?
Medicare is a jet engine fueling that massive deficit along with SS and Medicaid and Defense. The other stuff is peanuts really. Anyone who thinks otherwise should stop sending us internet telegrams from la-la-land.
re: la la land. All I ask is that people actually use facts to support their opinions and that if we do have a deficit that we know the constituent parts of it before we go around yammering about things that are not true.
If you look at the FACTS of the CURRENT DEFICIT – RIGHT NOW – SS and Medicare Part B are not a major part of it and Medicare Part B is about 200+ and MedicAid about 200+.
A good place to start is the Annual Social Security Trustees Report:
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/index.html
a short but careful read will show:
677.1 from FICA to SS
104.0 from FICA to disability (ss)
215.6 from FICA to Medicare Part A
270.4 – of which 220 billion if from Income Taxes for Medicare Part B
It’s important to understand the difference between FICA (payroll tax) and Income Taxes.
SS and Medicare Part A are not in major deficit right now – just a few billion because of the recession and the temporary 2% FICA rebate.
Medicare Part B is 220 billion and that comes directly from Income Taxes NOT FICA and this is a problem (but 220 billion is NOT 1.5 trillion)
MedicAid chews up about another 300 billion from Income Taxes directly and not FICA.
What this means:
2/3 (a trillion) of the CURRENT ….. ANNUAL (structural) deficit are not SS, Medicare and MedicAid.
We could do away with SS, Medicare and MedicAid right now and we STILL would have a STRUCTURAL ANNUAL deficit of MORE than a trillion dollars.
We are spending a trillion dollars MORE than we are taking in on income taxes (NOT on entitlements).
Those who believe that cutting entitlements will solve the deficit are either ignorant of simple facts easily obtainable or prefer to get their “facts” from ideological sound-bites.
Many folks fail to understand that FICA Taxes generates Revenues almost as large as Income taxes ( a trillion a year) but those revenues are exclusively dedicated to SS and partA not the rest of the budget.
In fact, if you look at the US budget – you’ll see that Income Taxes only generate about 1.4 trillion dollars annually which is LESS than the annual deficit. Think about that.
I’m not minimizing the importance of the 3 entitlements FUTURE THREAT but I’m pointing out that all of those who say that my fixing those 3 we fix our deficit are either being badly mislead or are just plain ignorant of the facts themselves.
We simply have a much bigger problem than the entitlements alone and we’re not going to fix that problem by fixing ONLY the entitlements but that’s actually what the Conservative/Republican/Libertarian narrative is right now and it’s totally false and really a disservice understanding our budget problems.
My major complaint.
We USED to be able to rely on the Republicans to tell us the TRUTH about the budget but the party has shifted so much towards the ideological that they spend their time fighting entitlements and never confronting the truth about the rest of the budget and deficit.
Don’t take my word for it.
Do a little listening to David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s original supply-side budget director who pulls no punches …cares little for Democrats but now holds special contempt for the Republican Party when it comes to fiscal integrity responsibility.
The Republicans helped to CREATE the 1.5 trillion deficit (making flimsy excuses about “no choice” wars) and rather than deal with it, they are essentially playing an entitlement blame game rather than honestly confronting the entire deficit.
Paul Ryans plan wants to cut the entitlements NOW but he then turns right around and claims that supply-side policies will close the rest of the budget gap by…… 2040…
you read that right. He ALSO presumes an unemployment rate of 3% for his supply plumped up tax revenues.
His plan does NOTHING about health care costs which are the driver behind the entitlements problems AS WELL AS Private insurance which is 16% of our GDP and projected to be 30% in a decade.
It is health care costs that are at the root of a major part of the deficit (to include the military TRCIARE program) an Ryan does NOTHING about it at all.. he walks away from it.
The reason I spent words HERE is that folks like DJ probably know the truth and while loyal to the party – it’s folks like him that need to help turn the party back to it’s original fiscal values.
I prefer the original Republicans to the CURRENT DEms..but the current Republicans are a mess.
Let me ask D.J. DIRECTLY.
is there ANYTHING that I wrote in the prior post that is not the truth?
Is there anything that you would ADD that is DIFFERENT than what I wrote?
I have tried hard to use the facts as I know them – from credible sources that I have provided the references to.
so tell me what I got wrong – AND provide a reference to a CREDIBLE site (not an advocacy group).
If you cannot or will not, then I assume the facts as presented are uncontested.
The KEY to all of this is to understand FICA and it’s role in the budget and entitlements.
I already told you you’re GOP-will-basically-kill-Medicare comment is inaccurate.
As for the budget; it has two problems: the weak economy has damaged revenues (still running at less than 15% of GDP, when the economy is humming normally, it’s about 19%) and speding is way out of control (currently over 23% of GDP). Righting the economic ship will get us roughly halfway to budget balance, meaning we need about $750-$800B in spending reductions.
As you yourself have shown, Medicare Part B and Medicaid are responsible for at least half of it (and that’s without any discussion of Part D).
Look, Larry, what you want is a massive tax hike. The trouble is, a tax hike will delay economic recovery, which will also delay revenue recovery. Tax hikes *never* generate the revenue their supposed to generate.
This is the difference between accounting and economics, a gulf you seem unable to cross.
I’m NOT advocating for a tax hike. I AM advocating for 2 things:
1. – the truth, the facts about the deficit – how much is due to entitlements and how much is due to other things.
2. – how do we solve the 2/3 of the deficit that is not due to entitlements?
you say we have a spending problem.
where are the cuts?
cutting FUTURE entitlements does not FIX the CURRENT ANNUAL deficit. Where are the cuts?
I do not advocate a tax increase. I simple ask how we balance.
I, like David Stockman, do not think we can do it with cuts alone.
But if you think we can – then let’s get the list.
otherwise – you guys have no credibility at all on actually getting the jobs done – which is why the current Republican party is a fraud compared to the part of old where they could be trusted to be honest about the budget.
The Republican Plan for spending cuts is in Ryans Roadmap to Prosperity.
there are no cuts except for entitlements.
Ryan says that supply-side economics will make up the shortfall in revenues – but it will take until 2040 to work and it presumes a 3% unemployment rate.
there are virtually no cuts to non-entitlements.
the Republicans say we have a spending problem but they provide NO CUTS to fix the shortfall.
We started this foolishness back in 2001 where it was insisted that tax cuts would pay for increased spending for wars and terrorism and Part D.
10 years later – we have a fairly permanent 1.5 trillion deficit and 14+ trillion debt and still no plan for dealing with the excess spending and still a dogged belief that supply side will work because it worked before.
There is no Plan B.
If the supply-side theory does not work – we get deficits and the Republican demurer that we have a spending problem and need to cut.
But the cuts are nowhere to be seen. They do not provide the cuts only say they are needed.
And when someone calls them on this charade – they accuse that person of advocating tax increases.
this is fiscally irresponsible.
I would LIKE to see the Republican Party return to their roots of honesty and integrity in fiscal matters.
How about it DJ?