President Obama Terrifies Grover Norquist

Today, in the Daily Beast, Grover Norquist suggests in a short article that Mr. Obama is terrified of Representative Paul Ryan (R-VA), and his benighted attempt at Medicare "reform."

The president's highly anticipated budget presentation was a mulligan, not the work of a competent White House, says Grover Norquist. And it revealed just how worried Obama is about Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposal.

This is nonsense. It just shows that the terrified see terror everywhere. I would guess, if anything, President Obama is unsettled by the seemingly unstoppable demagoguery of the corporate-funded Tea Party and its elected acolytes. As the President surely knows, these dull-minded fools will drive us to wrack and ruin if given the chance, and with a Republican dominated Congress, it seems they have the chance. There are no lies too egregious for these Republican lawmakers. No wage earner brought so low that they won't ask them for more handouts to feed their overfed, affluent political patrons.

Here is my comment (with a couple of tweaks) on Mr. Norquist's mean-spirited dispatch:

Grover Norquist is a bloviating gasbag who despises anyone, including President Obama, who would do the responsible thing and raise taxes to pay for programs that a civilized society requires. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “No, young fellow, I like paying taxes, with them I buy civilization.” He was right. And Mr. Norquist is wrong. And has been for more than thirty years. He has sung the praises of tax cuts since the previous deficit fiasco during the Reagan years. After which George HW Bush raised taxes.

We have tax-cut this country into banana republic status, and still we have the embittered mobs who can not figure out who is picking their pockets and continue to vote for Republican corporate lap dogs. No wonder Mr. Norquist will not go away. And now we are supposed to follow Mr. Ryan off a cliff and price senior citizens out of the health care market. And then what? Standard Republican answer of course: kick 'em to the curb. And cut taxes. For rich people. For whom health care is a negligible fraction of their income. And yet, under Ryan's plan, according to a CBO report a typical senior citizen will pay 61% of their medical bills instead of 27% under current Medicare rules, by 2030 that figure jumps to 68%.

Grover Norquist and Paul Ryan are all about the same tactic: create a phony budget crisis, and then cut social benefit programs that rich folks don't like to pay for. But never, ever, ever cut defense, a fat, white-collar-welfare, 50% of the US budget. It's called starve the beast, and it is the only tactic the Republicans know that guarantees them a gold-plated, revolving-door exit from Congress. And it is a disaster for the country.

more: http://completelybaked.blogspot.com/2011/03/whos-counting.html
1: http://www.truth-out.org/gop-plan-medicare-not-nice/1302505200