Ayn Rand and the Koch Bros ARE running the US gov't (actually it's mostly owned and controlled by Wall St, billionaires and huge corporations such as Koch Industries, Goldman-Sachs, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, United Healthcare, Exxon-Mobil etc etc - Paul Ryan is just one of these corporate whores
numerous pimps) - "we the people" have NO voice in it at all. We're just the sitting ducks they scrape more flesh off of to further enrich themselves. Because having 99% of the nation's and the world's wealth isn't enough. THEY. WANT. ALL. OF. IT. And the rest of us get to live and die sick and destitute for it.
Paul Ryan, The Koch Bros, Pete Peterson (of the Peterson Institute) and other various Teabagger/AynRandian apes have successfully convinced people that "Social Security is Broke!" and "Medicare is bankrupt because of Obamacare!" while neither is remotely true. Obamacare in fact rendered Medicare fully solvent for another 10-12 years or -- so but The Idiot Brigade listens to Paul Ryan instead of looking for the truth. Facts are easily found but idiots can't find their own ass with both hands in broad daylight -- so there's that. Believe me I'm related to some of these idiots. They're dumb as a rock when it comes to this stuff.
The FACTS:
http://www.socialsecurityworks.org/faq/
http://www.cbpp.org/research/health/medicare-is-not-bankrupt
And Democrats? Well.... perhaps they're just whistling past our collective graveyards. Perhaps they have big plans they're secretly hatching. Bottom line is that THEY WON'T DO ANYTHING UNLESS THEY HEAR A CONSISTENT LOUD ROAR FROM ALL OF US. So warm up your letter-writing and phone dialing fingers and GET CRACKIN!
Paul Ryan/Kochs plan a two-pronged attack on the ACA/Medicare:
1. Repeal ACA with no replacement -
INCLUDING repealing the taxes that help fund it - virtually ENSURING there will be no money in the budget for any replacement - EVER.
2. ABOUT THOSE TAX CUTS/Repeals: these will totally EXHAUST the Medicare Trust Fund even more quickly than it would otherwise be depleted. IOW, Republicans will - over time - just DEFUND Medicare, then in 2024 or so if not sooner, simply claim there's no more money for it. Remember Obamacare made it solvent another 10 or so years. Paul Ryan and the greedy corprats & billionaires want to "FIX" that by moving money from ACA->Medicare into HUGE tax cuts for themselves instead.
...Reconciliation repeal bill from earlier this year eliminated $680 billion (over ten years) of taxes on high-income households and the health care industry (e.g., insurers, device manufactures, and drug companies). In addition to increasing deficits, by rescinding the 0.9% Hospital Insurance Trust Fund payroll tax on wages above $200,000, these tax cuts would also accelerate the exhaustion of Medicare’s Part A Trust Fund by four years, from 2028 to 2024
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https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2016/12/19/paying-for-an-aca-replacement-becomes-near-impossible-if-the-laws-tax-increases-are-repealed/
(these tax cuts will no doubt be re-introduced again since they now will pass under Trump)
REMEMBER the Republican M.O. for getting rid of "
big government" they dislike: they simply find back-door ways to STARVE THEM OF ANY revenue. Like what they did to the USPS with their poison-pill bill "
the US Postal Reform Act" - passed in 2006 wherein the USPS was required to PRE-FUND it's retirees benefits for SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS - something virtually unheard of anywhere else in the public or private sector. This effectively changed the USPS balance sheet from being fully in the black to being covered in RED. In case anyone believes the USPS isn't part of the government - it IS:
The USPS often is mischaracterized as a quasi governmental or private entity. It is neither. The USPS is a government agency that was created by Congress to achieve various public purposes. Federal law defines what products and services the Postal Service may offer. Additionally, the USPS’s employees are federal employees who participate in the Civil Service Retirement System, the Federal Employees Retirement System, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
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http://postalnews.com/blog/2015/05/09/postal-myths-2-the-usps-is-not-a-government-agency/
USPS ALSO HAS A HUGE AND POWERFUL UNION - the Postal Workers Union - which the Ayn Randian/Koch/Ryan Republicans HATE - all the more reason they want this entity GONE and completely privatized so that workers are treated more like UPS and FedEx workers - fewer benefits, lower wages, longer work hours, less or no healthcare or retirement - certainly nothing as good as the Civil Service Retirement System or the FERC.
So what will Republicans do to the ACA? Look at the USPS and other VERY SUCCESSFULLY RUN Gov't programs they hate. They'll find sneaky back-door ways to DEFUND the program - strip it (and Medicare and Social Security) of REVENUE then they'll claim it "
doesn't work" and thus needs to be abolished or privatized. ICING ON THE CAKE: they get to continue claiming that "
government is inefficient and doesn't work and shouldn't run anything but the military" - when it's actually REPUBLICANS whose anti-gov't ideas and anti-gov't prejudices and destructive dirty trickery that destroys the most successful government programs like USPS, Medicare, Social Security, and now, ACA and the basis of this is PURE GREED.
And of course The Idiot Brigade like my dumb as rocks relatives will believe every word of it.
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