Republicans: Less Like The Joker, More Like Henchmen

Sometimes it is easy to see the Republicans as bunch of super-villains, diabolically plotting every twist and turn to thwart the will of the American people with economic policy that only comforts the comfortable and afflicts the afflicted. After all they backed down the President and the Democratically controlled Senate and got most of what they wanted, even given that they upped the ransom demands in the middle of negotiations.

Then they go and do something like what Majority Leader Eric Cantor did yesterday. After managing to force a deficit reduction plan that will force some cuts in Medicare and will put Social Security and Medicaid in the sights of the Super Congress, they had pretty much rehabilitated their massive political malpractice of forcing a vote for the Ryan Budget.

Remember the Ryan Budget? You know, the one that wants to end Medicare as we know is and replace the program with as system of vouchers (but leave the name the same so they can claim they are not ending the program). Well, the oft confused Majority Leader does and he is still pushing the idea.

He sat down with the Wall Street Journal editorial board yesterday and said the following:

“What we have to be I think focused on is truth in budgeting here,” Mr. Cantor (R., Va.) told The Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal. He said “the better way” for Americans is to “get the fiscal house in order” and “come to grips with the fact that promises have been made that frankly are not going to be kept for many.”

There is it, the fact of the matter in one sentence. For all the talk of “preserving the programs” the reality is that the number two ranking Republican in the House is saying that they are going to break the promises that had been made.

Just when Liberal Dems were banging their heads against the wall at the stupidity of any Democratic President opening up Social Security and Medicare to political bargaining and giving up a hugely damaging issue right before an election cycle, Eric Cantor comes in and saves their hash.

While it is another chance for Democrats to pummel the Republicans on this issue and maybe bring the people back into their camp for the 2012 elections it is also a telling point about Republicans and their long term plans.

They really do see a chance to kill the social safety net programs that have kept millions of elderly Americans out of poverty over the last couple of generations. The tension between their fealty to Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge combined with the tension of massive donors in the Health Insurance and Drug industries has lead them to abandon their basic humanity.

The Virginia Representative went on to try to justify this position, he said:

“When we came out with our budget, we said, look, let’s at least put people on notice, but preserve those who are 55 and older,” Mr. Cantor said, referring to a Republican-written budget plan that would turn Medicare, now a fee-for-service program, into a program that subsidizes private health insurance. “The rest of us have got ample time to try and plan our lives so that we can adjust to reality here when you look at the numbers. Again the math doesn’t lie.”

Here is where the Majority Leaders endemic confusion rears its ugly head. Okay, sure, you are giving people time to adjust, but that does not at all address the underlying problem. These programs were established because the elderly could not afford to retire or cover the much higher cost of medical care without becoming destitute.

Cantor acts like knowing that you will have to spend a lot more money at the end of your life is all it takes for everyone to be able to arrange their lives to accommodate it. This is sadly delusional.

First off , as long as we are not controlling the increase in health care costs there is no way to accurately predict what amount of money you might need. That is before you even get to the fact there is no way to know if you will need a liver transplant or have cancer or not in advance. If people are forced to plan for that kind of thing, there is no money left for them to spend on anything else.

This is the classic false choice ploy of the Republicans. They insist on tax breaks for the wealthy, and then turn around and say that the nation is broke and we can’t afford to take care of people who have and will pay into these programs all their lives. They don’t look at the root causes of why Medicare spending continues to spike, namely private insurance.

While there would still be a cost increase issue as our population ages, if we had a single payer system we could reduce, immediately, 27% of the total cost of health care. That number come from comparing the 30% cost of administration from private health insurance and the 3% cost of administration for Medicare.

Someone as habitually confused as Rep. Cantor really should not talk about “the math”, it really doesn’t help him since math, unlike political rhetoric is not open to debate when one puts in all the factors. By lopping off the inconvenient bits Rep. Cantor can make it fit his ideology but it does not make it an accurate depiction of reality.

For all the foolishness of the position, you do have to give Cantor and the Republicans a bit of credit. When they get an idea they like they stick to it like glue. It doesn’t matter if they give the Democrats an issue that will be a club over their heads; they are hell bent for leather to pursue it.

So, are they super-villains? Hardly. It is always easier to accept a defeat when one is up against King Kong, so they get painted that way any time we take a hard loss. The reality is they are more like crowds of anonymous henchmen the hero mows down on his way to confronting the real villain.

Now all we really need is an actual hero in the form of the Democratic Party standing strong on entitlements. Sadly I don’t have a lot of faith that we’ll get a hero like that either. Maybe it is time to retire the comic book hero analogies all together. They don’t give us a good model for judging the political world. Let’s face it there are too many minor villains and a hell of lot of henchmen, but not very many heroes to go around in Washington today.

The floor is yours.