I’m done trying to hack through the tea party thicket of self-contradiction, self-delusion and self-serving positions. My last straw is Rand Paul, a tea party favorite and now Republican nominee for senator from Kentucky.
What damns Paul wasn’t the flap over his views on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Presumably, Paul isn’t a racist. He’s just a privileged white guy — a doctor and son of 11-term congressman Ron Paul — who lacks feeling for America’s tragic history of racism.
What makes Rand Paul so exasperating is his crashing hypocrisy on Medicare. The hero to the cause of smaller government and balanced budgets also vows not to touch Medicare — the biggest and fastest-growing expense on the federal balance sheet. Rand’s compromised stance reflects the political necessity of keeping the tea party people happy. The group is heavy with older folk, who have carefully drawn a line of self-interest around the king of government entitlements, Medicare.
Here’s a sample view from a leader of the Rhode Island tea party: “We understand that the federal government cannot take $500 billion out of Medicare and provide the same medical services to our elderly, all the while offering health care to 30 million new people, without a vast increase in the number of providers, the imposition of massive new taxes and/or the rationing of care.”
Where does one start? First off, the new health care legislation does not cut a single guaranteed Medicare benefit. It actually expands the offerings to include screening services and closing the drug-benefit doughnut hole. The savings come largely from ending overpayments to the private Medicare Advantage plans.
As for “the massive new taxes,” would the tea party folk please tell us where they are? While they’re looking, the public should note that money for the new health care legislation is honestly allocated. That can’t be said of the Republicans’ 2003 Medicare drug benefit — a corporate bonanza for which not a penny was funded.
Our tea party spokeswoman goes on to claim that, in any case, “we paid” for Medicare. Oh, really?
It happens that Medicare payroll taxes provide 40 percent of the program’s funding and premiums another 12 percent. The remaining 39 percent comes from general revenues (mostly income taxes). Much of the payroll and income taxes are born by people who won’t live long enough to collect benefits themselves. And given the spiraling costs of the program, today’s young taxpayers will never see the level of benefits that they are now subsidizing.
What is the extent of the support? A typical couple retiring in 2020 will have paid about $100,000 in lifetime Medicare taxes but will receive $500,000 in scheduled Medicare benefits over the premiums they pay to the program. This is according to C. Eugene Steuerle, a tax policy expert at the Urban Institute.
I asked Steuerle about the income taxes that many Medicare beneficiaries paid and continue to pay. He responded that “given the large deficits we’re running and the benefit level relative to previous or current tax levels, there’s still no doubt that current generations are being subsidized by future generations.”
My question to the tea party’s lovers of liberty: If you really think you’ve paid for Medicare and hate big government, why don’t you demand that this expensive program be ended?
Hey, the same Constitution that (you keep insisting) says nothing about a universal right to health coverage doesn’t guarantee health benefits for older people, either. Of course, you will get a refund for those payroll taxes you’ve paid.
But tea party patriots are not clamoring to lift the taxpayers’ yoke of subsidizing their retirements. The phoniness of this movement is hard to calculate.
Copyright 2010 The Providence Journal Co. Distributed by Creators.com
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy