Dividing Lines

While only seven months ago we stood poised on the brink of a new conservative renaissance, Republicans have managed to once again muck it all up. They hitched their wagons to proposals to end Medicare that are now dangerously close to hurtling them all off of a cliff. It is not the habit of the Blue Heron Blast to gloat but excuse me while I fire up the popcorn popper and await the immolation.

Americans have embraced the concept of a safety net since Roosevelt, to the consternation of tough love Republicans. We want to take care of the very young and very old and our civility has set us apart from other nations. Are our entitlement programs sustainable, with the rate of expected expense? Probably not. But rather than invoke common sense revisions to existing programs, like means testing, Rep. Paul Ryan's plan would end Medicare, instead giving out money to the states in the form of block grants so that people could buy private insurance. Seniors would pay 70% of their medical costs out of pocket instead of the current 30%.

According to a Kaiser Survey out today, people just don't buy it. 60% want to keep Medicare as it is, 30% want to revise it and only 13% are in favor of the GOP plan. I don't think that people trust the states and I don't think they trust the Republicans. Rep. Ryan admits that the private insurance vouchers will not cover people comprehensively like Medicare and that people would be dropped from plans.

Today 40 Republican Senators voted for the House plan to kill Medicare. Common sense prevailed with a few fringe Republicans like Snowe, Collins and Brown joining the Democrats to defeat the bill.

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I am getting more and more elderly people coming into the gallery to sell their most cherished possessions. Proud people in their seventies and older who played by the rules and now have ended up with nothing. I visited a home last week of an elderly couple who are filing chapter 7 today, their entire life now in shambles. I had to sift through their effects to see if there was anything that could keep them afloat. Try to find a decent job nowadays when you are that age.

The Bush recession left one out of four American seniors completely bereft of their retirement nest egg. When people lost their jobs, they unfortunately lost their health insurance. Have you noticed the increased numbers of family murder suicides in the news lately? Parents who think that it would be better for all concerned to die than to have to watch their children suffer. It's horrible but it is happening.

Who has held those responsible accountable for the notion that you could cut tax revenue while increasing spending? Remember, if we just let the free market loose what incredible things would be in store for us? Well now we see the fruit of deregulation. Who still remembers that we had a national surplus at the end of the Clinton presidency? While the rich and the oil companies have certainly got richer, the middle class and the poor have bore the brunt of the successful campaign to redistribute wealth to the top of the economic pyramid.

It takes a lot to wake up the American people. With a little finesse the Repubs could have had it all. But they decided to play with fire and have over reached, their plan contrary to the most basic notions of fairness and equity that most of us hold sacred. They created a false crisis, surely a country that can afford to subsidize big oil and to dump billions of dollars in pointless wars in the middle east can afford to take care of the poor and the weak in this country.

Not content to attack teachers, firemen and the police with their demagoguery, to decimate nutrition programs for the youth, they went after one of the few programs that separated us from the barbarians, one that reflects our desire that our elderly live the end of their days with a modicum of peace and dignity.

I suggest that the GOP stand firm and play this one to the hilt. The American people deserve to know what they really stand for.