It's no secret that one guy who's running for President is resorting to every trick in the book, fair or (mostly) foul, to get his party's base to flock to the polls in November.
The other guy running for President, not so much:
My message to Democrats is the same message I’ve got to Republicans and independents, and that is, I want a balanced approach to deficit reduction that combines additional revenue, particularly from folks like me who can afford it, with prudent cuts on both the discretionary side and the mandatory side but that still allows us to make investments in the things we need to grow.
And that means I’m prepared to look at reforms in Medicaid. I’m prepared to look at smart reforms on Medicare. But there are things I won’t do, and this is part of the debate we’re having in this election. I do not think it is a good idea to set up Medicare as a voucher system in which seniors are spending up to $6,000 more out of pocket. That was the original proposal Congressman Ryan put forward. And there is still a strong impulse I think among some Republicans for that kind of approach.
I’m not going to slash Medicaid to the point where disabled kids or seniors who are in nursing homes are basically uncared for. We’re not going to violate the basic bargain that Social Security represents.
Now, the good news is, if you’re willing to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires, then you can make modest reforms on entitlements, reduce some additional discretionary spending, achieve deficit reduction and still preserve Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid in ways that people can count on.
Good to know that the huge gaping maw in inequality that used to exist between several hundred billionaires and 100 million of the lowest-paid hourly-wage workers in this country was resolved to the benefit of the commonweal, that our corrupt and criminogenic system of multinational finance was demolished and rebuilt on sound business principles, that we embraced the need for wholesale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, that we once again imposed the rule of law upon our national security sector, and that we inaugurated a slew of massive public works programs to repair our rotted infrastructure and restore the economy to full employment. Because now that the hard work has been accomplished, all that's left to do is tinker with the tax code, ask grandma and grandpa to up their Medicare co-pays by a few dollars, count ketchup as a vegetable in school lunches, and presto! Deficit reduction. Which is important, you know, because . . . because Serious Persons.
(Via.)
What really worries me, though, is this:
We’re not looking for anything radical here. And frankly, the country doesn’t need radical changes.
I doubt that's what most voters who pulled the lever for Barack Obama were thinking in 2008, and I doubt it was what voters who pulled the lever for the Teabilly commissariat were thinking two years ago. Granted, the economy's still on something resembling life support, but even so, the only reason the President isn't ten points up in the polls over the most despised Presidential candidate ever is because there millions of angry, scared, frightened and pissed-off people in the electorate whom the political and financial elites of this country have failed utterly (the one line in Ryan's speech last night I actually agreed with) and who are fed up to the gills with Sensible Centrist policy initiatives that have been repeatedly tried and which have repeatedly failed. If Team Democrat blows this race, they'll only have themselves to blame for it.
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