{"id":4545,"date":"2011-04-11T03:50:22","date_gmt":"2011-04-11T10:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4545"},"modified":"2011-04-11T03:50:22","modified_gmt":"2011-04-11T10:50:22","slug":"the-safety-net-we-dont-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/11\/the-safety-net-we-dont-need\/","title":{"rendered":"The Safety Net We Don’t Need?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In their quest to gut all spending for Main Street to spend more for Wall Street, Republicans seem to believe that Americans, especially elderly Americans, don\u2019t need a safety net.  If they have their way, they may prove themselves right.  After we die, the need for a safety net disappears.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"RepubliCare\"Having secured \u201cdraconian<\/a>\u201d cuts in a last-minute budget deal last week, House Republicans are hyping<\/a> House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan\u2019s (R-WI) new \u201cPath to Prosperity [Murdoch delinked]\u201d plan. The proposal professes to reform programs like Medicare and Medicaid to rein in spending by $6.2 trillion over the next decade. But as the Washington Post\u2019s Ezra Klein notes<\/a>, Ryan\u2019s Medicare and Medicaid plans \u201crely on the same bait-and-switch: They use a reform to disguise a cut<\/strong>.\u201d By making Medicare a voucher program and Medicaid a block grant program with $750 billion less in funding, Ryan\u2019s plan forces seniors to pay more for the same benefits, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office<\/strong>, and jeopardizes vital health care services for millions of low-income Americans. <\/p>\n

Today on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace questioned House Majority Leader Eric Cantor\u2019s (R-VA) support for a plan in which Americans \u201cpay more out of pocket.\u201d Defending the proposal, Cantor argued that these programs sometimes provide a \u201csafety net\u201d for \u201cpeople who frankly don\u2019t need one\u201d and that the shift of the burden from the government to the beneficiary<\/font><\/strong> will teach government \u201cto do more with less\u201d… <\/p>\n

…Watch it:<\/p>\n