Senate Democrats Work with Republicans Throw Medicare Under the Bus as Part of TPP Fast Track Sausage-Making


Naked Capitalism has the article Senate Democrats Work with Republicans Throw Medicare Under the Bus as Part of TPP Fast Track Sausage-Making by Lambert Strether.

So, Congress is preparing to loot Medicare not just for this one program, TAA, but as standard operating procedure. I think that qualifies as “throwing Medicare under the bus.”

Strether took to the idea idea with the same skepticism that I showed in my previous post, U.S. Senate: Reject Medicare cuts and reject Fast Track. He also came to the same conclusion that I did. His article includes far more detail than mine, though.

I made two observations about this. The first is the following:

The reason why the politicians like the “pay for” paradigm is that it is a way to try to get people to stop complaining. I have always said that when you ask Congress to close tax-loopholes, their response has always been, “Ok, if you want us to close tax-loopholes, we’ll gladly cut the ones that you use.” They hope that the lesson people will finally learn is that you’d better not ask Congress to close tax-loopholes.

If the politicians have to make cuts in government programs, they first make cuts in the most popular programs that help the most people. They want you to feel the pain, so you will stop pestering them.

Then I followed it up the this observation.

The reason why the politicians like the “pay for” paradigm is that it is a way to try to get people to stop complaining. I have always said that when you ask Congress to close tax-loopholes, their response has always been, “Ok, if you want us to close tax-loopholes, we’ll gladly cut the ones that you use.” They hope that the lesson people will finally learn is that you’d better not ask Congress to close tax-loopholes.

If the politicians have to make cuts in government programs, they first make cuts in the most popular programs that help the most people. They want you to feel the pain, so you will stop pestering them.

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