HE HAS WORKED HARD FOR HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS. HIS ADMINISTRATION
IS INFESTED WITH THEM. OBAMA HAS PROMISED THEM ENDLESS NO-STRING BAILOUTS,
MASSIVE BONUSES AS WELL AS NO PRISON TIME.
NOT ONE CRIMINAL BANKSTER HAS BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME OR
EVER WILL. AS IS ALWAYS THE CASE OF WALL STREET’S WAVE OF CRIMES, THERE WILL BE
A FEW PALTRY FINES, AND THESE WILL BE PAID OUT OF BAILOUT MONEY.
NEXT TO BANKSTERS, OBAMA WORKS HARD FOR HIS LA RAZA PARTY
BASE of ILLEGALS. NEXT TO BANKSTERS, HIS ADMIN IS INFESTED WITH LA RAZA
SUPREMACIST.
CONGRESS AND OBAMA ARE NOW HANDING OVER OUR BORDERS TO OPEN
BORDERS ADVOCATE AND LA RAZA SUPREMACIST JANET NAPOLITANO. OBAMA HAS SQUANDERED
BILLIONS PROTECTING THE BORDERS OF MUSLIM DICTATORS OVER THERE, WHILE PUSHING
OUR BORDERS OPEN WIDER WITH NARCOMEX.
WIKILEAKS and ALIPAC HAVE EXPOSED OBAMA’S OPEN BORDERS
AGENDA… IT’S ALL ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED.
OBAMA’S UNAUTHORIZED PRE-ELECTION GRINGO-PAID DREAM ACT
HANDED MILLIONS OF JOBS OVER TO ILLEGALS, AND COST AMERICANS HALF BILLION
DOLLARS. MORE TO COME… MUCH MORE! WE ARE MEXICO’S WELFARE, JOBS, PRISONS, AND
COLONY FOR LOOTING!
MEXICO ISN’T AMERICA’S ONLY LOOTER! NOR ARE OBAMA’S CRIMINAL
BANKSTERS. OBAMA DONOR SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, BUSH’S WAR PROFITEER LIKES THE
SMELL OF MONEY WHERE EVER SHE CAN CUT HERSELF IN.
White House zeros in on Medicare
4 February 2013
Both President Obama and a top economic adviser have confirmed
that Medicare, the federal program that underwrites the cost of health care for
more than 50 million elderly and disabled people in the United States, is a
prime target in the budget-cutting negotiations now going on behind the scenes
in Washington.
While talks continue on social program cuts that will affect tens
of millions and ultimately the majority of the American people, public
attention is being diverted to a serious of secondary issues, such as
prospective gun legislation. There was, for example, enormous media attention given
to a photograph of Obama shooting skeet with a shotgun at Camp David, including
a protracted debate over when the photograph was taken and whether the
president could be said to be a hunter.
The real business of the Democrats and Republicans, however, is
laid out in the Saturday radio addresses by Obama and a spokeswoman for the
congressional Republicans, both of them calling for substantial cuts in
domestic social spending.
Obama’s address repeated his empty claims of an economic
recovery. He failed to note the radical divergence between the boom in business
profits, stock prices and corporate CEO pay and the disastrous state of the job
market, with workers’ wages and benefits continuing to decline.
Obama then turned to the question of the deficit, with his usual
mixture of doubletalk and demagogy, declaring, “We all agree that it’s critical
to cut unnecessary spending. But we can’t just cut our way to prosperity.”
In a passage from the brief address that was not quoted in media
accounts, Obama continued, “Already, Republicans and Democrats have worked
together to reduce our deficits by $2.5 trillion. That’s a good start. But to
get the rest of the way, we need a balanced set of reforms. For example, we
need to lower the cost of health care in programs like Medicare that are the
biggest drivers of our deficit, without just passing the burden off to
seniors.”
The last phrase is typical of Obama speechmaking, and of all the
declarations by big business politicians in Washington. First, you signal to
your corporate masters what you plan to do, i.e., make drastic cuts in
Medicare. Then you reassure the victims of this policy that they aren’t really
the target.
In truth, that is exactly what the White House and congressional
Democrats and Republicans are planning. They will impose the burden of the
fiscal deficit on the backs of the most vulnerable sections of the working
class: the elderly, the disabled, young people and the poor.
There is, as Obama emphasizes, general agreement in ruling circles
that such cuts will be made. The only question—about which there is heated
debate—is what mechanism to use and how to disguise, as much as possible, the
real significance of the measures now being discussed behind closed doors in
the US capital.
Gene Sperling, head of the Obama’s National Economic Council,
underscored the centrality of Medicare cuts to the deficit-reduction process in
a speech Thursday to a health care group. Sperling began by declaring that the
administration was opposed to any cuts in Medicaid, the entitlement program
that underwrites health care for the poor and nursing home care for millions of
elderly people.
This is not out of any concern for the impact of such cuts on the
poorest Americans. Quite the opposite. Since extending Medicaid eligibility is
a central feature of the Obama health care overhaul, which goes into full
effect at the end of this year, it is necessary to keep Medicaid afloat at
least that long so as to sustain the fiction that health care “reform” is aimed
at expanding access to care and conceal its real purpose—to cut the overall
cost of health care for corporations and the government.
Moreover, most Medicaid cuts are implemented at the state level,
and state governments, led by Democratic as well as Republican governors, have
cut back on benefits and eligibility across the country.
“Medicaid cuts, from this president, from this administration, are
not on the table,” Sperling said. But since “we’ve made a tough choice” to rule
out Medicaid cuts, he continued, “It means we will have to look harder for
Medicare savings.”
Neither Sperling nor any other White House spokesman has spelled
out exactly what cuts in Medicare are envisioned. But the failed budget
agreement of 2011, reached by Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner,
gave a glimpse. It called for raising the age of eligibility for Medicare from
65 to 67, which would force millions of retiring workers to pay for private
health insurance for those additional years. It also called for increased means
testing, a step towards turning Medicare into a welfare program reserved for
the poor, like Medicaid, and undermining its universality.
The Washington consensus that entitlement program cuts are
unavoidable is justified on the grounds that, as countless big business
politicians declare, “There is no money.”
This is the mantra in the richest country on the planet from
representatives of a ruling elite that is gorging itself on speculation,
profit-gouging and outright swindling. The American financial aristocracy is
raking in trillions while begrudging every penny spent on retirement income or
health care for working people who have labored all their lives.
The claim that there is no money is a lie. The resources exist in
abundance, but the wealth produced by the labor of working people must be taken
out of the hands of the financial parasites and billionaires and the major
banks and corporations placed under democratic control and public ownership.
Patrick Martin
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