Have you been watching this unfold over the last day or so? The House GOP leadership has been throwing Ryan under the bus and walking back any idea of privatizing Medicare as part of a budget scheme. Why?
There’s a new Q Poll that says that 6 in 10 Americans oppose this cockamamie idea. Which is consistent across all of the poling that I’ve seen — majorities — including majorities of Republicans (scroll down) — want the Government out of our Medicare. After a recess where representatives were asked some very tough questions about their votes to privatize Medicare, they’ve apparently come back to tell Mr. Ryan that the GOP Caucus is finally brave enough to throw him under the bus.
Representative Cantor, though, does his best to come up with a resonating excuse for losing Ryan — The President was Mean to Our Plan! And besides, its not off the table! Tax cuts are off the table!
Speaker Boehner notes that the Ways and Means Committee chair won’t bring up the privatization plan in committee, because Democrats in the Senate and the White House won’t let their monster off of the raft. Once again, not even acknowledging that there are crowds of citizens on each side screaming for privatization’s head.
Democrats in the Senate write to Eric Cantor, telling him that he was a good boy for walking away from the thing that has already exploded in the faces of him and his colleagues. (And more like this, please! But NOTE Delawareans — our own Tom Carper is reported as NOT signing this letter. What’s up with that?)
But Chuck Schumer reminds the GOP that while they made a smart move here, their on-the-record votes to kill Medicare will be in their faces for eternity. I hope this isn’t an empty threat.
And apparently this decision isn’t sitting especially well with the Freshman class of teahadis. They’ve retreated to whining about Democrats for their failure to brainwash their own constituents.