Seniors Cannot Support Republicans, Can we ? I Think Newt

Fund Medicare Fully, Rather Than Subsidizing Oil Companies

Senate Republicans did not help their relationship with Seniors and Working Americans this week when they voted to keep year in subsidies for $4 billion per oil companies while supporting a budget plan that would end Medicare as we know it. Even with polls showing a majority of Americans wanting to keep Medicare intact, Senate Republicans voted to keep the oil subsidies after they had previously embraced an agenda to turn Medicare into a voucher system. The nation‟s five largest oil companies made nearly $1 trillion in profits in the past decade, and profits are soaring even more with gas prices hovering today around $4 a gallon. To me, it is unconscionable for the Republicans to decimate Medicare so we can keep the big oil companies feeding off the federal trough. I believe that it is more important to help an elderly woman pay her medical bills than it is to use tax dollars to inflate the already obscene profits of an oil company.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Medicare Spotlight Shines Again on Newt Gingrich:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) (upper left) spent Monday defending the plan to dismantle Medicare after it came under fire in surprising fashion from a fellow Republican, Newt Gingrich.(upper right) Gingrich became the first GOP presidential candidate to openly rip the plan, which would convert Medicare into a private insurance program, after the proposal -- part of a House budget blueprint to tame federal spending -- drew heavy criticism from some voters, and polls showed it to be unpopular. Gingrich later called his statement criticizing the Ryan plan a “mistake.” However, in 1995, when he was Speaker of the House, Gingrich had told a gathering of Blue Cross/Blue Shield executives that he and his fellow Republicans planned to present “a free-market plan” that would compete with Medicare and ultimately drive it out of business. “We believe it's going to wither on the vine,” he said then, “because we think people are voluntarily going to leave it.” “Newt Gingrich actually had it right when he was criticizing the Ryan plan,” said Ruben Burks, Secretary-Treasurer of the Alliance. “Too bad he didn't stand his ground and maintain that stance.”

Editorial : Ya gotta admire the Republican guts. They tell you exactly how they are gong to S**** Us. We elect them anyway ? Surely, I`m missing something ?