Gingrich brags that Republicans are coming for everything FDR accomplished

[CousinIT]

Early signs suggest that Gingrich’s predictions that Roosevelt’s legacy could be undone should be taken seriously. Republicans in the House hope to cut Social Security benefits by 20–50 percent. Speaker Paul Ryan’s plan to voucherize Medicare would drive up out-of-pocket costs for seniors by about 40 percent. Then he’d cut Medicaid by between a third and a half.

At the very least, Republicans are serious about gutting the safety net that Roosevelt began to weave in the 1930s.

Of course, Trump did say he would resist such efforts when he was a presidential candidate, but now that he is president-elect, he is stacking his cabinet nominees with Republicans broadly sympathetic to Ryan’s agenda and publicly trying to mend fences with the sitting House speaker.

Trump, in other words, appears to have pulled a bait-and-switch on his voters. He promised them a kind of racist populism, hostile to minority groups but defensive of social welfare programs that most Republican base voters hold dear. And now he appears poised to slash those programs instead.

https://thinkprogress.org/gingrich-brags-that-republicans-are-coming-for-everything-fdr-accomplished-28a1b1d46224#.8p5c9bncc

[polichick]

1. They absolutely are! There's a sadistic longing on the right that's...

hard to get your mind around.

[WestSeattle2]

2. Well, I'd say they'll have quite a fight on their hands. For starters, wages for the working class

have stagnated. For those capable of saving for retirement, the average savings/investment balances are shockingly small, and nowhere near enough to fund retirements, or medical needs in retirement. Second, we have a consumption based economy. If Republicans cut SS and Medicare - consumption will drop like a rock. Every spare penny in the middle and lower classes will be saved. No college loans, new home construction will wither on the vine, new car sales will collapse, many major appliance and home furnishing retailers will close, a significant percentage of restaurants in every dining segment except for fast food, will close - basically massive unemployment will ensue, along with social and civil unrest. Pitchforks wielded by furious and frustrated citizens would be the least of Republican concerns.

So if that's the future Republicans want to stake their claim on, I'd invite the morons to try. Let's have a national discussion about the quality of life Americans want - and which party would best deliver that vision.

[CousinIT]

3. I believe you're correct re: economy.

But the moron KGOP have been gunning for Soc Sec, Medicare, Medicaid (and now ACA) for a loooong time. I doubt they have the brains to even think as far as the rest of us have about the economic impacts of their greedy deeds. After all they never do think about it. They just blame Democrats when the bottom falls out and shit hits the fan.

Most of these psychopaths are millionaires or billionaires who will never need these earned benefits so cutting them is a no-brainer for THEM (nevermind what it does to anyone else). There are virtually no consequences for them in gutting these programs. They will not suffer economically. Everyone else will. They will not suffer politically. Democrats will.