Author: JRM

Voting Against Your Own Self-interest – The American Way?

Have you ever wondered why people vote against their own self-interest?  In many respects perhaps they can’t “see the light for the trees.” The trees are all the lies and distortions that one side puts up that seduce voters into focusing on ideas that they might like to, or are predisposed to believe, but are not true. One side playing on the known conscious and unconscious fears of prospective voters.  This tactic is not new, it has been going on forever in the United States.

It is a well know fact that the Republican party has always had the dismantling of social programs as one of it’s goals. Social Security and Medicare are at the top of the list.  They make no secret of it. But when it comes to election time they change the rhetoric.  They say they want to “reform and save” Medicare, but the real plan is to destroy it. Their plan to save Medicare is to “privatize” it by turning it in to a voucher program that would by default limit benefits.  By the way, a voucher is not cash. The voucher money would all go to private health insurance companies for limited coverage.  Remember G.W. Bush and his plan to “privatize” social security. Imagine what would have happened to the privately invested retirement funds in the stock market crash of 2008! Privatizing Medicare, the goal of the Romney/Ryan plan would inflate the cost of coverage and increase the deficit by $109 billion in ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

At the moment the Romney/Ryan campaign is putting out one lie after another regarding Medicare. Outright false statements are their stock and trade. They try to obscure reality with a barrage of lies. They say that changes would not effect current recipients or those close to retirement. This is not true since any change like giving out vouchers will result in the weakening of the current system. Once Republicans get their hands on Medicare it will effect everyone. Republican plans would push Medicare into insolvency because they want to overturn laws that keep it solvent! Again their goal is not to save or reform Medicare, it’s to destroy it.

There is no “raid”  on Medicare by President Obama. What he did was cut wasteful handouts to Health Insurance Companies. He eliminated avenues for fraud in the system. That savings is used to create more benefits for Medicare recipients in the Affordable Health Care Act (Obama Care).  The Romney/Ryan plan takes $716 billion from Medicare and uses it to finance tax cuts for the wealthy.  It’s in the Ryan Budget!  So Romney/Ryan are attacking the President with obvious lies to muddy the waters and confuse voters. It’s the Karl Rove tactic of attacking the other person and accusing them of your own faults.

According to the New York Times, “In reality, the $716 billion [from Medicare going to the Affordable Health Care Act] is not a cut in benefits but rather the savings in costs that the Congressional Budget Office projects over the next decade from wholly reasonable provisions in the reform law.”*  Romney/Ryan and the Republican Party have pledged to overturn the reform health care bill.  Overturning this bill will drive up the cost of health care for all seniors especially those with higher prescription needs and disabilities. The $716 billion, a cut also proposed by Romney/Ryan, will cut benefits and the money goes to reducing taxes for the top one  percent.

Romney and Ryan are both millionaires from wealthy families. Their policies benefit themselves, their extended families and the very rich. If elected, they will do what they said they would do before they tried to disguise it with campaign rhetoric and false accusations against the President, his administration and Democrats.

President Obama and Democrats traditionally support Medicare as an important commitment of non-changing benefits to seniors.  Democrats also support no changes to Social Security. What ever age you may be, the rock solid government guarantee of benefits for retirement provide a safety net for all. Contrary to Republican propaganda neither program is near bankruptcy. With the kind of well meaning reforms Democrats initiate these programs will continue to provide the type of support that most civilized counties of the world provide for their citizens. Countries as big as those from Europe and as small as Central American countries like Costa Rica.

Destroying Medicare is just  one priority of the Romney/Ryan far right Republican agenda. They support killing the minimum wage, destroying any form of collective bargaining, deregulation of all financial institutions, elimination of Pell Grants, pushing student loans back into the private sector, and cutting taxes for the super rich like themselves. Republicans don’t stand for small government either with programs for state and federal governments to control the rights of women in all ways. Every state where Republicans got control in 2010 has enacted (or tried to) laws that subjugate women and attempt to stop certain groups of people like students and minorities from voting.

Ask yourself, will Republican polices make my life better or will they destroy the middle and working class way of life in this country? We all like to think we will be among the super rich one day. In actuality the Republican agenda closes the door to upward mobility. Without Democratic social reforms, financial regulation and government incentives for small business, building and maintaining  infrastructure, capitalism turns into totalitarianism by the super rich and major corporations. We end up in the Great Depression again.

Written by J R Martin

*  New York Times Sunday Review 8-19-2012