Sniff, sniff..."If I don't get me way to gut entitlements after trillions are lost from this tax cut bill, I'm gonna cry me self to sleep every night!" Sniff, Sniff
Well, it didn't take very long for Paul "Eddie Munster" Ryan to fess up about the real agenda behind the execrable "tax reform" bill being rushed to Dotard's desk. In an interview this morning, the churlish whelp with the uncanny resemblance to Eddie Munster (of "Munsters" fame) plain admited what he wants to do next year with "entitlements". Hell, this turd has been literally salivating about cutting Social Security and Medicare for the past ten years.
CBS' Norah O'Donnell straight out asked Ryan: "Will Congress take up entitlement spending next year?" To which Munster replied:
"Yes, we will. We have to address entitlements otherwise we can't really get a handle on our future debt."
Munster Ryan actually blurted the sentence out with a straight face, despite the fact he and his compadres had just effectively added up to $1.5 TRILLION in debt by this outrageous tax cut bill .. (Made much worse by adding tweaks in the past 2 weeks that deliver 83% of all the benefits to the top 1 percent, including a real estate provision that translates into $414 b in new debt).. So get the picture here: He and his ilk are monstrously ADDING to the debt while stating they have to cut social insurance benefits next year to prevent adding to the debt. Try to wrap your brain around that bunkum.
He went on:
"We need to get this debt under control so our kids and our grand kids can get a debt free nation."
Yeppers, Eddie Munster. So you and your fellow assholes just handed corporations and the wealthiest a big chunk of permanent tax cut, corporate welfare at the cost of adding $1.5 trillion in debt - which will saddle those same "kids and grand kids" with interest on the debt (individual) payments averaging $12,000 per year each, How dumb do you think Americans really are?
And the biggest howler was yet to come:
"Number one we got to grow the economy. This tax cut bill will do that. Number two, reform entitlement programs."
Of course, the tax cuts bill will do no such thing, and we've already got prima facie evidence on that score. Most illuminating was White House economic advisor Gary Cohn's recent meeting (now gone viral) with dozens of CEOs, and most of them giving thumbs down when he asked about potential jobs, e.g.
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-plan-gary-cohn-bill-2017-11
The moderator (WSJ's John Bussey) asked those in attendance whether they were planning to increase their business investment if the tax bill became law. The CEOs in attendance didn't seem to be on the same wavelength as Cohn. While there was a smattering of raised hands in the auditorium, it was clear there were not as many as Cohn would have liked. You see Cohn asking, almost embarrassed to be caught in the same room with these misfits:
"Why aren't the other hands up?"
Then, realizing he'd get no rational or decent answer, moving on to another question. So WHO is Munster trying to fool? Well, I guess the clueless dummies comprising Dotard's forlorn base of deplorables.
Ryan went on with further bullshit:
"Back to the welfare issue, we right now are trapping people in poverty ...on welfare programs-- which prevents them from hitting their potential and getting in the work force. The problem we're going to have is with a faster growing economy is we're gonna need more people working. So we need to ease the barriers to get more people from welfare t4o work."
Of course, this is arrant horse manure - and it's again incredible Munster could blabber this out with a straight face. You have to give the guy credit for his acting talent on live TV. The bitter truth is there will be NO "economic growth" - certainly spawned from this tax cut bill. The CEOs have admitted (see link above) they want to create no new jobs, and automation is killing most repetitive jobs which would be the most likely for those on welfare to take.
According to one recent report (Denver Post Business, p. 1K, Dec. 3). "over the next 13 years , 70 million workers in the U.S. will have to find another way to make money" Again, we're informed all the jobs at risk involve repetitive tasks - and the robots at work can already "scan Tylenol bottles and lip balm at the drugstore" as well as "build pickups and take your grilled cheese orders at Panera Bread." McKinsey Global Institute estimates that "half the duties workers handle globally could be automated."
The bad jobs news - i.e. elimination of more jobs for more humans - doesn't stop there. According to a WSJ report ('Firms Leave The Bean Counting To The Robots') in the Business and Investing section (p, B5, Oct. 23) AI -based robots will soon be taking over CFO and other accounting work across the land, as well as the jobs of "accountants, bank loan officers, and insurance claims adjustors". Even FORBES now uses an AI system called 'Quill" to pen its articles, so less need for flesh and blood journalists.
So "Eddie Munster" Ryan is in la-la land when he talks of all these extra jobs that those on welfare will be able to get. The brutal, unvarnished truth is that MORE welfare - or at least financial support programs (like universal basic income)- will be needed to support the millions whose jobs are taken by automation, or were never created because of simple corporate greed. (Preferring share buybacks to job creation).
Never mind. Eddie 'Munster' Ryan still salivates over the prospect of cuts to Medicare and Social Security.
Ryan's biggest "wet dream" ideation is to replace Medicare with a "voucher plan" though he had since altered the language to "premium support" to make it more impenetrable to the average person. But it's the same old trash in slightly different wrapping. In the end, it's a bare-faced, unadulterated effort to eviscerate the elderly in this country of any medical or other security. To leave them unprotected, like dogs without bones, in a vicious commercial -coercive market landscape that will laugh and howl in stitches before it remotely considers offering any insurance. Worse, the Ryan plan seeks to divide and conquer by telling current oldsters over 55 they "have nothing to fear" while leaving the horrific voucher system to "those 55 and under".
Most citations of Ryan's "premium support" have suggested $10,000 as the top amount of money issued per year for Medicare beneficiaries. But as I already pointed out, (Dec. 15 post) if I had to operate using even a $20,000 per annum GOP voucher plan- say implemented under a pay-go cut to Medicare- I'd have ended up shelling out nearly $40,000 out of pocket for the uncovered procedures. And none of that even includes the cost for wife's hip replacement surgery, including 7 days in rehab.. Other seniors with much less in savings would be in dire straits or having to declare bankruptcy.
Ryan also seems not to learn form history, like too many others in the GOP. He now wants to also privatize Social Security - like Gee Dumbya Bush attempted back in 2005. We saw how that one came out, with the Dems taking over both Houses of Congress in 2006. Before privatizing Ryan would be quite content just to stop the COLA used now.
This would be by implementing a chained CPI, such as buried in the Senate version of the Repuke tax bill. The brainchild of billionaire Peter G. Peterson, the chained CPI reckons inflation (and hence adjustments) at barely one third of the regular COLA - based on the standard CPI or Consumer Price Index. Thus, most seniors in the country will find themselves either malnourished, bankrupt or in the poorhouse after five years.
The use of the "chained CPI" assumes that as prices increase, consumers will buy lower cost alternatives, reducing the amount of inflation they experience via less costly choices. For example, if the price of stew beef or hamburger rises by 50 cents a pound, they'll opt for pork. If pork prices increase by 50 cents a pound (say owing to the Chinese buying tons of corn meal for their own hogs) then consumers will move to chicken. If chicken prices rise too much they will move to cheap fish or canned tuna. If those prices rise too much....well, I guess there's always dumpster diving (Repubs have already cut the food stamp budget to the bone.)
Basically then, the chained CPI introduces a race to the bottom. And a bottomless pit is what we are headed for unless these clowns can be derailed in their social spending cut aspirations next year. Sen. Chris Murphy (CT) was correct when he told Maddow last night that this is all "a ransom paid to the big money, high roller GOP donors."
Make no mistake this is what Ryan and his cabal have yearned for the past dozen years. Getting a Reeptard president in, on whose back they could ride the "entitlements cut" horsey. They, however, know not what they do in digging their own political graves- which will be abundantly clear by this time next year.
See also:
And:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/phil-rockstroh/76622/capitalism-s-failure-of-the-flesh-the-rise-of-the-robots
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