Tagged: Social Security

Posted: August 24, 2011 at 5:51 am

Montana’s Biggest Phony

Montana TEA Party Congressman Dennis Rehberg has been caught again pretending to care about projects in Montana that he votes against when he gets back to Washington.

Rehberg said this week in the Montana Standard that he visits community health centers because “It really attaches a human element to the decisions I have to make.”

Not that this “human element” matters to Rehberg. The TEA Party Congressman has a record of voting against community health centers, just like his compadres in the Montana Legislature. This year alone, Rehberg voted to cut community health centers by $1.3 billion. He also voted to eliminate 750 health center jobs in Montana.

Rehberg has been caught many times pretending to support programs he votes to cut. Earlier this year in Darby, Rehberg feigned support for Job Corps, despite previously calling the program ‘ineffective’ and supporting a plan to close more than 80 out of 125 Job Corps centers across the country, the Montana Standard reported. He has also pretended to support breast cancer awareness by voting to end mammogram coverage. Most recently, he tried to pretend to oppose Medicare and Social Security cuts while voting to slash funding for the programs.

Posted: July 25, 2011 at 7:45 pm

MT Legislature Named in Top 10 Craziest, But Refuses To Settle For Anything but Number 1

After it was revealed that the nuttiest of nutmegs in the Montana Legislature have only been rated number seven among the Top Ten Craziest State Legislatures in America today, Montana Republicans realized that anything but first place in this category just wasn’t good enough for them.

That’s when they decided to put a gun to their collective heads and eagerly pulled the trigger with their support of a constitutional amendment to force massive gutting of Medicare and Social Security.

After all, how else could they top all the good ideas they wanted to pass during the session like the gold standard, selling off the national parks, nullifying federal laws, and lifting the prohibition on carrying concealed weapons in bars, churches, and banks.

The majority of the tea-bagging wing of the Montana Legislature (see the list here) did themselves proud in the crazy category today by simply admitting what the establishment wing of the Far-Right has been too modest to speak of in broad daylight: Their support for a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution to destroy Medicare, destroy Social Security, and leave 80% of the country to go off and die alone in old age, as soon as they’re no longer able to stand and greet us at the door of Walmart.

The impetus behind this move is to elect more TEA baggers into office by making this amendment part of a debt ceiling deal, then claiming that anyone who votes against their proposal loves unlimited deficits–when everyone knows that the deficits were caused by the Bush tax cuts and two unpaid for wars. (Of course, the move will also help them secure the top spot in the national crazy legislature scene.)

Jeff Essmann, Denny Rehberg, and the Republicans who signed this must surely be proud of their perseverance, their striving to win, and most of all for their endorsement of cuts to Medicare and social security–willingly making their own reelections more difficult now that Democrats might use their signatures against them in the campaign.

Those not signing up against Medicare and Social Security?

Tom Berry, Mark Blasdel, Ron Ehli, John Esp, Roy Hollandsworth, Brian Hoven, Harry Klock, Steve Lavin, Walter McNutt, Sterling Small, Max Yates and every Democratic member of the House and Senate.

Posted: July 22, 2011 at 7:49 am

A Fake and a Liar (And Not Very Smart)

Steve Daines is googlewashing his record, but that’s not all that’s fake about him.

His facts aren’t real either, and his public, on-the-record support for a bill that forces cuts to Medicare and Social Security shows that he’s also not very smart. Daines has made a major miscalculation that is expected to negatively impact his campaign. In the Missoulian,

Daines said the “Cut, Cap and Balance” plan “explicitly spells out that there will be no cuts in benefits in Social Security, Medicare and veterans benefits and services.”

In response to critics who say the plan would inevitably require cuts to Social Security, Daines said, “It’s important that we move away from scare tactics and political rhetoric and start solving the problems our country faces. Reform will be needed to save these programs. We must ensure we protect seniors today and also work to ensure we save the system for future generations.”

You know Daines read the Republican talking points that say this bill exempts Medicare and Social Security, the problem is, that isn’t true. As the non-partisan Center for Budget Policy Priorities points out, that claim “falls apart under scrutiny”:

“The measure does not cut Social Security or Medicare in 2012. And it does not subject them to automatic cuts if its global spending caps are missed. It is inconceivable, however, that policymakers would meet the bill’s severe annual spending caps through automatic across-the-board cuts year after year; if they did, key government functions would be crippled.”

The legislation technically exempts veterans’ benefits, Medicare, Social Security for the first year. But these programs comprise roughly 2/3 of all entitlement spending. That means that under the House GOP plan, spending cuts will “fall on programs like school lunches, student loans, food stamps, Medicaid, and unemployment insurance – some of the very programs designed to automatically increase when the economy is down in order to lessen the impact of job losses and associated economic hardship.” And 70% of Medicaid goes to care for seniors and people with disabilities.

According to the National Economic Council:

“When you’ve already made such deep cuts to discretionary spending, Medicaid and other programs, it becomes difficult to imagine any credible ways to achieve those spending levels without including Social Security in the reductions and making substantially deeper reductions in Medicare.”

Cuts to Medicare and Social Secirty will be a major issue this campaign, and the fact that Daines’ expressed support for cutting them though his support of this legislation is a major misstep on his part that will be used against him again and again, and tilts this race back in favor of Democrats, in spite of his initial fundraising lead.