Dead on Arrival? Rep. Paul Ryan Speaks Out on Medicare, Federal Budget, & Obama: “We Don’t Need a Good Politician, We Need a Strong Leader” (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on April 3, 2011
Bravo — Rep. Paul Ryan just keeps sticking to his fiscal-responsibility guns, even if his attempts to push for huge federal budget cuts are “dead on arrival.” On FOX News Sunday today, Rep. Ryan discussed with host Chris Wallace the tough times many Americans are going through, and the even more tough times we face if something substantive isn’t done soon to reign in this administration’s out-of-control spending, to reform Medicare, and to get Americans back to work.
Both sides of the political fence in Congress are quibbling about a few billion dollars when we’re facing trillions in debt. It’s like discussing how many thimblefuls of water should be used to empty a swimming pool. Rep. Ryan sees our imminent economic catastrophe, even if other Republicans and Democrats don’t. And the lack of solid direction to take our economy in the right direction from our nation’s leader is distressing.
Here is a short segment from Ryan’s interview:
FOX News Sunday: Rep. Paul Ryan on Obama: “We Don’t Need a Good Politician, We Need a Strong Leader”
Rep. Ryan’s not afraid to speak his mind about the president and to identify what he considers serious problems with our nation’s leadership and budget crisis:
“Senate Democrats have not even passed a bill to prevent a government shutdown. We’ve passed two… I find it kind of ironic that the week we are trying to engage the president, the Democrats and the country with an honest debate about our budget with real solutions to fix this country’s problems and prevent a debt crisis, the president’s launching his reelection campaign.
“Look, these are tough times for America. We don’t need a good politician. We need a strong leader. We need to engage this country on the issues that are necessary to secure our prosperity, to get this debt paid off. To get our economy growing right now.
“We know for a fact that we are giving our children and grandchildren a lower standing of living. And, we don’t need good politics. We don’t need to keep making empty promises to people. We need to engage and fix these problems while they are still under our control.”
Transcript of the entire FOX News Sunday interview is posted at Maggie’s Notebook. Here’s Ryan’s discussion with Wallace about Medicare and Medicaid:
RYAN: Right, so for wealthy seniors especially. It also did not say these are vouchers. These are premium support, and there’s a big difference here with that. It said that we’re going to protect people who are low-income. We are going to protect people as their health condition gets worse. If you get sicker, you’ll have more so that you can have — your rates stabilize. No more premium increases.
The key is this. There is nobody saying that Medicare can stay in its current path. Even Obamacare acknowledges that. So we should not be measuring ourselves against some mythical future of Medicare that isn’t sustainable.
Medicare itself, literally, crowds out all other government spending at the end of the day. We can’t sustain that. We have got to get Medicare solvent.
Rick Foster, the chief actuary, came to the Budget Committee just the other day and said, one of the best things we can do to save Medicare, one of the best things we can do to bend that cost curve and help inflation is to go to the kind of system we are proposing.
WALLACE: Now, Medicaid — and I’d better ask because I’m only — I’m basing this on the reports, the reports are that you’re going to save $1 trillion over 10 years on Medicaid. True?
RYAN: No. Those numbers are different as well. You’ll see our specific numbers –
WALLACE: Block grants for the states?RYAN: You will — we propose block grants to the states.
We’ve had so much testimony from so many different governors saying give us the freedom to customize our Medicaid programs, to tailor for our unique populations in our states. We want to get governors freedom to do that –
WALLACE: But critics say –
RYAN: — and we will be proposing block grants –
WALLACE: But critics say you’re not reforming, that you’re cutting. That’s you’re actually going to be cutting. By giving these block grants, you’re going to be cutting health care services to the poor and the disabled.
RYAN: Let me say this one thing, Medicare and Medicaid spending will go up every single year under our budget. They don’t just go up as much as they’re going right now, because they’re growing at unsustainable rates.
Free programs alone, Medicare, Medicaid especially, and social security, take over all government revenues by the time my children are my age. When my kids are my age, who are six, seven and nine years old, at that time when they’re raising their children, three programs crowd out every other federal priority. They can’t keep growing at the pace that they’re growing at.
So, yes, we do increase and grow Medicare, Medicaid spending but albeit not at — at the pace they’re growing at because they’re completely unsustainable. And that’s why we’re (INAUDIBLE) them with key reforms that are proven to stretch that Medicare, Medicaid dollar farther.
From UPI, GOP’s Ryan proposes $4 trillion in cuts:
WASHINGTON, April 3 (UPI) — U.S. Republicans are looking ahead decades in the ongoing budget battle in Congress and will propose cutting $4 trillion over 10 years, two GOP lawmakers say.
U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said on “Fox News Sunday” Democratic President Barack Obama’s proposed budget for 2012 “locks in very high spending levels” by not addressing entitlement programs. Obama has called for a five-year freeze on non-defense discretionary spending to save $400 billion.
“He does nothing to address the drivers of our debt,” Ryan said. “He’s punting on the budget and not doing a thing to prevent a debt crisis, which every single economist tells us is coming sooner rather than later in this country.”
Spot-on quotables from conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, EIB Network/Rush Limbaugh Show broadcast March 30, 2011:
“We have Chuck Schumer out there advising everybody to call the Tea Party people extremists. Frankly, folks, I want some extremists when it comes to budget cutting.”
“You are not engaging in collective bargaining when you’re a public employee union member — you’re just shaking down your fellow citizens.”
“This country will not survive very long with too many people thinking their neighbors owe ‘em a living. Europe has shown us this.”
About the author
a thought for thoughtfull people living in the newly ordained socialist republic of america
often the existence of ‘universal-free-at-point-of-need’ health care in britain, is held as an example to be aimed for
well, the drawback is this the fact that since 1947, there has and is the awkward reality that the brits, pay their tax, on a pay as you earn basis,
the tax is deducted by the employer, out of the weekly wage.
so it was simple to add on a further 7 or 8 % to the deductions, and call it social security contributions.
no options, no army of tax-accountants to be paid (or not) for by the citizen, you get a wage, you pay your tax and social security stamp, as you earn, this funds the health service etc
then, the government pays pensions, basic for those without private pensions, the vast majority of workers, including me.
how can the socialst whitehouse fund a health care system
WHEN IT CANNOT EVEN COLLECT THE TAXES FROM EVERYONE, MUCH LIKE ITALY, WHERE YOU HAVE TO BE STUPID TO PAY ANY TAX AT ALL.
where is the cash supposed to come from, without a universal system of collecting payments from reluctant citizens
how can the