Notice: Date Changed For Janesville Forum On Medicare

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Sorry, the Janesville Medicare Forum set for June 14th has been changed to a new date due to an unfortunate scheduling conflict. The venue is yet to be determined, that should happen by Monday but I wanted to let people know about the change as soon as possible.

Forum on How Ryan Would Destroy Medicare.

Speakers:

Rob Zerban, Kenosha County Supervisor and candidate for the first Congressional District (Paul Ryan's).

Robert Kraig, Executive Director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin, author of "Rep. Paul Ryan's Budget Plan a Trojan horse Assault on American Values"

Date Changed to Wednesday, JUNE 29

VENUE to be determined...

Chuck (Rock County Progressives)
rockcountyprogressives@gmail.com

Daft Duffy Shifts Blame After Voting To Repeal and Replace Medicare...oops, Obamacare

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It should come as no secret that Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" Medicare-killing-class-war manifesto was built on the premise that if passed, it would not only repeal President Obama's Affordable Health Care Reform Act but that it would be the privatization framework Republicans would use to replace it with.

Think Progress Excerpt:
Freshman Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) promised during his campaign that he would only repeal health reform after finding a solution to replace it. However, he told a town hall meeting in his district this week that GOP leaders had convinced him to vote for repeal first, ensuring him that a replacement would be on its way. GOP leaders, Duffy said, told him that a replacement bill would be ready by the Spring. The fact that nothing has been proposed or debated all year has Duffy “very concerned”

Wait a second!! Paul Ryan's budget proposal Path to Prosperity was made ready for public consumption during the first week of April. That's spring! No? And, Ryan's "Path" contained four highlighted pages dedicated to terminating President Obama’s Affordable Heath Care Act and lists defunding, repealing and replacing as one the plan's key objectives.

Path to Prosperity excerpt:

KEY OBECTIVES

PATIENT-CENTERED HEALTH CARE: Repeals and defunds the President’s health care law, advancing instead common-sense solutions focused on lowering costs, expanding access and protecting the doctor-patient relationship.

[underline highlights added]

Ryan's privatization and deceptively described "patient centered" proposal was the GOP's replacement plan and according to all definitions, form and function, it cannot co-exist with Obama's Affordable Health Care Act. In fact it can be said that Ryan's Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Resolution IS the Republican's defunding, repealing and replacing "Obamacare" all-in-one act. Duffy should know. He voted for it.

Think Progress Excerpt:
Duffy’s frustration is understandable. As Jared Bernstein has noted in March, Republicans still had not brought up a bill outline or even begun the steps in the relevant committees to propose a comprehensive health bill.

I totally disagree with that statement. The Ezra Klein article referenced by TP from March was three weeks before Ryan presented his budget proposal and no one at the time, no one, would have thought Ryan's anticipated annual budget would contain language repealing and replacing the Affordable Health Care Act. But it did. Duffy's "frustration" now is phony.

Duffy is just another shifty empty suit in a long line of shifty Republican empty suits who are now running as far away as they can from their "Care Killing" budget vote in the House. It's like it never happened.

Here's the clincher. Some of Duffy's "repeal Obamacare" constituents seemed to have no idea that Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" was actually a deal resolution that would eventually terminate their Medicare in exchange for repealing Obamacare. One couldn't happen without the other. What a deal - eh?! Things were bad enough as it stood so Duffy wasn't going to tell them the truth about it. Instead he says republican leadership offered nothing for repeal and replace and lunatic constituents call him a liar for it. He got off easy.

Watch it:

Duffy Says Republican Leadership Misled Him

Ryan's House Challenger Picking Up Steam

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Paul Ryan Watch - Zerban warmly received by Dems, who sense a upset brewing.

LaCrosse Tribune - Democrats: Next Year will Be Different

Journal Times - Zerban: In It To Win

Janesville Messenger - Steer Clear Of Ryan's Path To Poverty (Zerban Editorial, Page 6)

Concerned about Medicare? Rock County and Janesville residents are invited to a Medicare Forum and can meet Paul Ryan's challenger Rob Zerban in person at Basics Food Cooperative in Janesville on Tuesday, June 14th. More info here.

Wisconsin GOP Busy "Fixing" Democratic Primaries Has No Time For Their Own

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Showing us what their democracy looks like, the crooked state republican party is sending out letters encouraging colleagues to place fake Democrats on recall ballots.

JS Online Excerpt: Daniel Bice
Both of the fake Democrats have a history of giving almost exclusively to major Republicans.

"We need to make sure Democrat challengers face primaries to allow our Republicans time to mount a campaign," Dan Feyen, chairman of the 6th Congressional District Republican Party, wrote in the letter to "fellow conservatives" on Friday.

"A Democratic primary," Feyen continued, "will push the general election back by one month, so that Senator Hopper can have more time to organize a campaign against his liberal challenger."

That's verbatim what is in the other two-page letter encouraging support for the second fake Democratic candidate, except that note substitutes Olsen's name for Hopper's.

Letter encouraging Republicans To Support Fake Candidate

Quote:
Having just pushed through a Voter ID bill to repair elections that were not broken, Republicans are now busy trying to fix elections. -- James Rowen, Political Environment

Impact On Districts From Ryanscare Would Be Devastating

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The 1st Congressional District of Wisconsin has been in Ryan's loving care for thirteen years now. If he gets his way any further, the Committee on Energy and Commerce writes we can expect more of the same.

From The Happy Circumstance and reposted at the busy Paul Ryan Watch ...of course!

Committee on Energy and Commerce Excerpt:

Impacts on the 1st Congressional District of Wisconsin

The Republican proposal would have adverse impacts on seniors and disabled individuals in the district who are currently enrolled in Medicare. It would:
• Increase prescription drug costs for 9,700 Medicare beneficiaries in the district who enter the Part D donut hole, forcing them to pay an extra $95 million for drugs over the next decade.
• Eliminate new preventive care benefits for 112,000 Medicare beneficiaries in the district.
The Republican proposal would have even greater impacts on individuals in the district age 54 and younger who are not currently enrolled in Medicare. It would:
• Deny 550,000 individuals age 54 and younger in the district access to Medicare’s guaranteed benefits.
• Increase the out-of-pocket costs of health coverage by over $6,000 per year in 2022 and by almost $12,000 per year in 2032 for the 127,000 individuals in the district who are between the ages of 44 and 54.
• Require the 127,000 individuals in the district between the ages of 44 and 54 to save an additional $29.7 billion for their retirement – an average of $182,000 to $287,000 per individual – to pay for the increased cost of health coverage over their lifetimes. Younger residents of the district will have to save even higher amounts to cover their additional medical costs.
• Raise the Medicare eligibility age by at least one year to age 66 or more for 70,000 individuals in the district who are age 44 to 49 and by two years to age 67 for 419,000 individuals in the district who are age 43 or younger.

Despite Ryan persistently claiming his proposal changes nothing for over-55's, the committee finds otherwise.

Impacts on Current Medicare Beneficiaries in the District

The Republican leadership has asserted that “if you’re a person who is 55 years of age or older, there’s no change in Medicare for you” and that “we protect Medicare for current seniors.” In fact, the Republican plan would immediately cut benefits for thousands of seniors and individuals with disabilities in the district.

Including higher drug costs and the elimination of new preventative care benefits. Read more here.

Interactive Map of District by District Impact From Ryan's Care Proposal.

Additional: Ryan budget committee colleague: Ryan plan would kill Medicare

Rep. Paul Tonka Editorial.

Scott Walker planning visit to Rock County Farm On Saturday

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Gov. Scott Walker will appear tomorrow morning from 9:45 AM to 11:00 AM at the Rock County Dairy Breakfast at the Daluge farm on Highway G between Janesville and Beloit. Visitors to WEAC's facebook are hoping to provide a "welcoming committee" to let him know how much we "appreciate" his plans for WI.

Ryan Demogogue: Don't "Misdescribe" My Health Insurance Voucher As a Voucher

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Politico Excerpt:
Rep. Paul Ryan scolds President Barack Obama for calling his Medicare plan a “voucher.”

Much has been written about Rep. Paul Ryan's toxic mentality and use of demagoguery, so when I read that 100 House republicans went to the White House to whine about their Medicare proposal being called a "voucher," I thought it was a joke.

These whining stumble bums, particularly the likes of Ryan, Boehner, Bachmann, King and Cantor have a lot of nerve to go to the very person whose agenda they've labeled as fascist liberal (Ryan himself) and name-called as a communist, Black Muslim Kenyan Marxist and a Big Government Socialist and whose health care reform they disrespectfully refer to as ObamaCare, and "commie care" and having death panels, to turn around and belly-ache over the president referring to Ryan's proposal to destroy Medicare as a "voucher" system? If they only knew how good they have it.

But it's a testament to the President's poise and class that he continues to deal with their petty grandstanding in such a dignified manner. Obama is the only adult in the room.

Beyond that, there's really nothing to come out of this story except for the confirmation that republicans are a bunch of unashamed crybabies and hypocrites. But we already knew that.

Another View: The Paul Ryan Watch - What did Ryan tell Obama? Not much, it turns out

Walkerhood - Takes from the Needy and Gives to the Greedy

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Republican lawmakers voted Tuesday to trim taxes for corporations and investors while cutting tax credit programs for the working poor.

JS Online Excerpt:
Titled: Joint Finance panel Adjusts Taxes
One would completely eliminate state capital-gains taxes on long-term investments - they must be held at least five years - in Wisconsin businesses beginning with purchases made in 2011. The other would defer taxes on capital gains reaped anywhere if the proceeds are plowed back into a Wisconsin business.

The proposals would cut taxes by an estimated $36 million over the next two years and much more in future years, as the first proposal starts in 2016.

Walker's proposal to cut taxes for multistate corporations. That would roll back in part the so-called "combined reporting" tax increases passed by Doyle and Democrats in 2009 and reduce taxes by $46 million over two years....Cuts to the Earned Income Tax Credit program for the working poor of $56.2 million over two years, $12.7 million more than the cuts proposed by Walker. The Legislature's nonpartisan budget office has described Walker's proposal as a state income tax increase.

We know jobs are created by demand for goods and services. When $56 million is cut from working poor Wisconsin residents - demand for goods and services will drop proportionately. We know the working poor tend to plow their tax credits right back into the economy. In the meantime, Walker is giving multi-state corporations tax credits worth $82 million over two years partially paid for by the $56 million shift from the poor. That leaves a difference of $26 million everybody else of course will have to pay - and $26 million less in our pockets will leave $26 million worth of goods and services on the shelf. $82 million from the pockets of Wisconsin residents directly into the private treasuries of multi-state corporations.

I'm getting used to it. When Walker and Wisconsin Republicans give wealthy corpse tax credits, it doesn't seem like they're happy or satisfied until they kick Wisconsin's working poor and middle-class wage earners in the face at the same time.

Another View: Democurmudgeon - Tax Increase For The Poor, so Multistate corporations and investors are lured into job creation with reduced taxes.