McConnell speaks again about repealing the ACA if they get the votes as well as slashing Medicare and Social Security.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/17/mcconnell-says-senate-republicans-might-revisit-obamacare-repeal.html
Wow! What a walking hypocrite!
"In a forecast of 2019 policy goals tempered by uncertainty about who will win the congressional elections, McConnell also blamed costly social programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, for the fast-rising national debt."
It's becoming painfully clear to me that fiscal problems are caused by the actions of our elected representatives and not directly by social programs intended to help people. There's an election coming up. I guess I'll just have to express my thoughts with my votes.
It's an intentional strategy that plays out on both the federal and state level that the Republicans have employed for decades.
1) First you cut taxes (while also increasing government spending, of course), because who doesn't like paying less taxes? This makes them popular, even as it bankrupts the government.
2) Then when the Democrats are in power you complain about how much of a deficit you have run up and pretend like you are the fiscally responsible party. Then:
2.a) If the Democrats cut military spending you complain about how they're traitors who don't support the troops.
2.b) If the Democrats cut "entitlement" spending like social security or medicaid or school or infrastructure spending you brag to your constituents about how you are good "fiscal conservatives" while the electorate gets mad at the Democrats for the benefit cuts.
2.c) If the Democrats (gasp!) increase taxes to what they were before the tax cut you scream about how they're taking bread out of the mouths of teachers. No one likes tax "increases", so this makes the Democrats incredibly unpopular.
It's a win-win-win political strategy for Republicans. Also known as "starving the beast", look it up. "Increase taxes (on the rich) and increase spending" at least makes back-of-the-napkin mathematical sense. "Cut taxes and increase spending" (what Republicans
always do) makes no mathematical or financial sense at all, but it makes political sense which is all they care about.
And yet they still manage to brand themselves as "the party of fiscal responsibility" even as they bankrupt the country and destroy working systems.
The only unique thing here is that they're actually talking about cutting benefits while they're still in power, but I'll believe that it'll happen only after I see it.