Cheers and Jeers: Thursday

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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE?

Foul!!!!!!!!

That's right, Congressman Paul Ryan---I'm calling foul on you. Yesterday you met with President Obama about your Republican Medicare-killing budget, and you tried to get away with this:

[Rep. Ryan] described his plan for Medicare reform for the president, saying Democrats were mischaracterizing it. Our program is not a voucher plan, Ryan said, it is premium support---which he then explained.  Ryan told the president that he is making a sincere attempt to address a problem, and he challenged the president: ?Mr. President, the demagoguery only stops if the Leaders stop it." His fellow House Republicans gave him a standing ovation.

Okay, first of all: Republicans, what is with you and standing ovations lately? Are you that starved for touchy-feely groupy huggy moments? ("Hey, look---Mitch McConnell ate all his peas! Yaayyyy! Everyone out of your chairs! Good boy!") Sheesh.

Second, a Republican calling for a stop to demagoguery is like Donald Trump calling for a stop to self-promotion. And since you, Mr. Ryan, are yourself demogoguing by falsely accusing us of demogoguery, we order you to stop demogoguing first. (See what I did there? Verbal jiu-jitsu---Hai!)

Third, I pay attention to people who explain things honestly, see? So last Friday, as I was knitting a sweater for my goldfish, Zachary Taylor IV, I perked up when the eminintly honest and smart teen heartthrob and MSNBC contributor Ezra Klein explained the diifference between "vouchers" and "premium support":

EZRA KLEIN: "When the Congressional Budget Office looked at it, they called it a voucher program. What Paul Ryan is doing is, he doesn?t like the word voucher.

So, what he?s saying is that, instead of the government handing you something called a voucher, the federal government will hand the insurance company money on your behalf. Now, that works like a voucher program and it looks a lot like a voucher program, but he wants to call it something called premium support.

The problem with calling it premium support is that there are?two guys actually who invented premium support in the 90s, Henry Aaron and Bob Reischauer. And I spoke to Aaron. And he said, no, what Ryan has got is not premium support. It is vouchers. And the reason why is that difference between those two types of plan is that, when you are on premium support, the government tries to keep cost shifting from happening. So, they make sure the?their support grows at the same rate as your medical costs grow.

Under Ryan?s plan, that support only grows at the rate of inflation and, thus, there?s going to a lot of cost shifting, making it, in Henry Aaron?s view, not premium support, which is what Ryan wants to call it, but a voucher.

So, was that simple enough, or was that too complicated?"

It was beautiful. Take the rest of the day off.

And now, Congressman Ryan, I believe you owe the President of the United States either an apology for lying or a correction for being ignorant. Which will it be?

Meanwhile, Democrats, you may continue firing your catapults loaded with fireballs of truth at Boehner Castle at will. I think the drawbridge is starting to smolder.

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Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/gDyOM4OApSM/-Cheers-and-Jeers:-Thursday

Douglas L. Lamborn Duncan D. Hunter Dutch Ruppersberger Earl Blumenauer