Paul Ryan recently visited The Villages. It is a largish town of mainly retirees just south of Ocala, Florida. His visit attracted some protesters:
There is a sign with a dick joke. The one that bothered me was the sign that reads “Hands off my Medicaid”
Uh, it isn’t YOUR Medicaid. That particular program is a giveaway of MY money. It isn’t now, nor was it ever, your money.
I would also point out that at least half of these protesters were bussed in by the UAW. Why? Because it is a RETIREMENT community with the only jobs being infrastructure and service jobs like medical, grocery, and restaurant jobs.The people here are all wearing Tshirts provided by the Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. There is a guy standing there, holding a UAW sign. He is wearing a nametag and a dress shirt. I wonder if he is the “community organizer.”
The website on the professionally made signs, “saynocuts.org” redirects to “thetruthnow.org” which, according to the site is owned by the “National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare” According to opensecrets.org, they claim to be a “grassroots” organization whose mission is to support the continued existence of Medicaid and Social Security. They facts say otherwise. They donate to Democrats at a ratio of $99 to Democrats for every dollar they donate to Republicans.
In fact, this committee donates heavily to the members of Senate and House committees that have little, if anything, to do with Social Security and Medicare. They seem to simply be a fund generator for the Democratic Party.
3 Comments
Pamela · August 25, 2014 at 2:54 pm
The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare is a grassroots membership organization with millions of members, activists and volunteers across the country. We are funded by individual membership dues and donations. We do not receive any funding from government or labor groups however, we are allied with many different organizations and group who share our positions on the issues.
While Americans contribute to Medicare and Social Security throughout their working lives, Medicaid can still be considered "our" program too since it is funded with our taxes. We have a right to defend it from threatened cuts.
National Committee members can choose to donate to our Political Action Committee which supports incumbents and candidates who are aligned with our legislative positions. The GOP commitment to American workers, retirees and their families has changed, dramatically. They support measures which would cut benefits and shift costs onto seniors who are already facing financial challenges. That's not something our membership would ever want us to support.
Paul Ryan is a proponent of cutting Social Security and Medicare – referring to them as "entitlements" as though they are handouts from the government. If you want to challenge someone's choice of words, it would be great if you could devote some blog space to asking him why he chooses to refer to our earned benefits in that way, and more importantly, why he thinks the benefits we've been paying into all these years are somehow to blame for the irresponsible fiscal actions of Congress.
If you will please take some time to look through our website at http://www.ncpssm.org. You will see evidence of the excellent education and advocacy work that we do on the Hill and out in the states.
Divemedic · August 25, 2014 at 6:18 pm
And exactly what do you think entitles you to Medicaid? Simply because you demand it? The fact is, it isn't YOUR money. I am sick of seeing people live by feeding off of the labor of others, while producing nothing of value.
Divemedic · August 25, 2014 at 6:25 pm
Also, to address a couple of your other points:
1 Social Security and Medicare are called "entitlements" because by law, people are entitled to them. Being called an entitlement is linguistically accurate, and has nothing to do with them being handouts. If you actually took the time to read my blog, other than just posting on anything that concerns your group, you would see that.
http://street-pharmacy.blogspot.com/2013/09/spending.html
2 The above link also explains why Social Security and Medicare are impossibly large portions of the budget.
I looked at your website. Spin.
I also looked at your main source of funding. It isn't individuals. 99% of your funding comes from PACs, not individuals.
Comments are closed.