One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party’s presidential candidates. It’s a plan that aims to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next ten years, and one that addresses the challenge of Medicare and Medicaid in the years after that.
Those are both worthy goals for us to achieve. But the way this plan achieves those goals would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we’ve known throughout most of our history....[yeah, if history started in the 1960's...sorry - ed.]
These are the kind of cuts that tell us we can’t afford the America we believe in. And they paint a vision of our future that’s deeply pessimistic.
It’s a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can’t afford to fix them. If there are bright young Americans who have the drive and the will but not the money to go to college, we can’t afford to send them.
It’s a vision that says America can’t afford to keep the promise we’ve made to care for our seniors. It says that ten years from now, if you’re a 65 year old who’s eligible for Medicare, you should have to pay nearly $6,400 more than you would today. It says instead of guaranteed health care, you will get a voucher. And if that voucher isn’t worth enough to buy insurance, tough luck – you’re on your own. Put simply, it ends Medicare as we know it.
This is a vision that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit. And who are those 50 million Americans? Many are someone’s grandparents who wouldn’t be able afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down’s syndrome. Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the Americans we’d be telling to fend for themselves.
Worst of all, this is a vision that says even though America can’t afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can’t afford to care for seniors
and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy.
What does Obama offer in return? Slashing the Defense budget, strengthening ObamaCare, and raising taxes ( I love this part - "In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. And I refuse to renew them again." We'll see, tough guy, we'll see...)
His biggest lie? That's easy:
I’m eager to hear other ideas from all ends of the political spectrum...
The ugliest statement contained within? There's many, but this one pisses me off the most:
This sense of responsibility – to each other and to our country – this isn’t a partisan feeling. It isn’t a Democratic or Republican idea. It’s patriotism.
So now, if you don't feel responsible for your douchebag deadbeat neighbor, you're unpatriotic. Which is just another way of saying if you don't agree with the Obama plan, or put more simply, if you are a principled Republican, you are unpatriotic.
Funny how quickly these Lefties are to question your patriotism. Theirs, of course, is unassailable...
How well will his speech go over? Obama's speeches are like a drug - a quick high, followed by remorse, and regret. Some folks are addicts, who can never get enough. Most people, though, once they realize a drug's destructive power, turn their head and walk away.
Like they will tonight...