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TexasTowelie

(112,161 posts)
Thu Mar 9, 2023, 04:40 PM Mar 2023

Biden Baits Republicans Into A Trap On Medicare Funding - Ring of Fire



President Biden has spent the last month hammering Republicans over their desire to cut Medicare, and now he's put them in an un-winnable situation of calling for increased taxes on wealthy Americans in order to secure funding for the popular safety net program. Republicans don't want to raise taxes on their donors, even though that is a highly popular idea with the public. Biden wins no matter what in this fight, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains.


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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

President Biden has put Republicans between a rock and a hard place with his proposals to keep Medicare solvent. So here's what's happening. Uh, multiple different analyses have been done on the Medicare program and one of them says that the program could become insolvent by the year 2030. Another one says it could be insolvent or insolvent, excuse me, by the year 2028. Either way, the clock is taking. Medicare is putting out more money than it's taking in. And we all know, of course, that for the last month, president Biden has been hammering the hell out of Republicans for their desire to cut Medicare. Instead of making the program better, they just wanna slash it until it dies. And he's had quite an impact. Such an impact by the way that Rick Scott, the leader of the Let's sunset these programs, people has actually pulled that from his platform.

So Biden's winning on the Medicare messaging, people wanna save Medicare and now he's put them in the position to where they can't call for Medicare cuts. They have to try to make the program better. And Biden's plan would make the program better, keep it solvent by raising taxes on anyone making more than $400,000 a year, as well as raising taxes on corporations. So the trap that Biden has now set for these Republicans is that they either have to raise taxes on themselves and their donors, which we know they don't want to do, or worst case scenario, they have to go along with the plan, raise the taxes, and Medicare is saved. So either way, Biden will win because when Republicans vote against this, which they will because they hate taxes on themselves and their donors, then the Democrats have the ultimate talking point. They can then go out to the public if they can get their messaging right, cuz God knows they'll fumble it somehow.

But they can go to the voters and say, Republicans had the opportunity, they could have raised taxes on people making more than $400,000 a year. A plan that, by the way, is supported by more than 60% of the American public, even Republicans. A majority of Republicans think the wealthy aren't paying their fair share. So it's universally supported among all the parties. And the Democrats can say, Republicans voted to save their tax cuts and now you won't have Medicare in a couple years. Because of that, they showed you what their priorities are. They want to protect themselves, they want to protect their wealthy donors, and they want you to suffer. Now, how are you gonna handle that? Because you can go to the ballot box and make sure that these donor protecting Republicans that are sending you into poverty don't ever get back into office. That's a winning message. Again, assuming the Democrats can get their messaging right, they tend to do a very

Bad job at it. But I am hopeful and optimistic because this is a smart plan tying saving Medicare to raising taxes on wealthy people. And by the way, saving Medicare is also widely supported by the American public, along with raising taxes on the wealthy. Everything Biden is doing is what the public wants, and he's going to force Republicans to vote against it. And then Democrats use that as their campaign message. That's a smart move. And again, the worst case scenario is that we end up saving Medicare instead of getting a good campaign talking point. So again, no matter how this works out, Biden already won on this issue.
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Biden Baits Republicans Into A Trap On Medicare Funding - Ring of Fire (Original Post) TexasTowelie Mar 2023 OP
like it republianmushroom Mar 2023 #1
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