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Mar 20, 2010

A Little History

Dana Milbank, writing in the Washington Post:

"This is the largest tax bill in history," the Republican leader fumed. The reform "is unjust, unworkable, stupidly drafted and wastefully financed."

And that wasn't all. This "cruel hoax," he said, this "folly" of "bungling and waste," compared poorly to the "much less expensive" and "practical measures" favored by the Republicans.

"We must repeal," the GOP leader argued. "The Republican Party is pledged to do this."

That was Republican presidential nominee Alf Landon in a September 1936 campaign speech. He based his bid for the White House on repealing Social Security.

Bad call, Alf. Republicans lost that presidential election in a landslide. By the time they finally regained the White House -- 16 years later -- their nominee, Dwight Eisenhower, had abandoned the party's repeal platform.

8 comments:

  1. It's understandable,that cost has to be considered in everything. But,how can republicans have what seems to be,a fundemental view of
    social programs as not worthy. Why
    care so much about the elderly and
    not the younger folks with pre-exisiting conditions? These elderly,as previously stated,are
    receiving more benefits than they had paid in taxes.

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  2. Of course, his analysis of the bill was right on target, as we know now. But, now it's too late. Thus the importance of stopping the health care reform bill, before it, too gets so out of control that it sinks the economy, as out-of-control SSA entitlements are about to do.

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  3. Republicans lost that presidential election in a landslide. By the time they finally regained the White House -- 16 years later -- their nominee, Dwight Eisenhower, had abandoned the party's repeal platform.

    If it was just a retirement program it might have been possible, but by that time the program been expanded to pay benefit, to spouses, widows, children and disabled. Kind of hard to cut a program when everyone thinks they are getting a free lunch.

    One of the worse things in the so called health care reform bill is the closing of the "donut hole" in the Medicare Part D program. The whole purpose of that was to keep the cost of the program down. So spending on that goes out of control just as we need more money for Social Security and the other Medicare programs.

    This time things are different, we have the history of these other programs that weren't supposed to cost that much out of control and people have got wise to Obama's and the Dems BS.

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  4. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Health-plan-means-bigger-deficits-and-higher-taxes-88676767.html

    The bill begins the march to higher taxes. High earners will pay 3.8 percent more in Medicare tax, on top of a promised increase, from 35 to 39.6 percent, in their income tax rate. Economists of every ideological stripe agree that raising taxes in a recession will slow or prevent recovery. The bill also creates a 3.8 percent tax on interest and dividend income above certain levels beginning in 2013. That's another growth killer.

    More important, in the long run the tax increases on high earners and supposed cuts in Medicare spending in this bill will not be available to solve the long-term fiscal problems of Social Security and Medicare. They will have been used up. What that will mean is this: A future Congress will have to scale back benefits or increase taxes on the middle class.

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  5. Except for posting No.1, the other comments are dead spot-on correct.

    I feel like this country has been taken over by aliens.

    When America falls, remember who to blame.

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  6. If we wait just a little longer, the Obama-hating historical re-writers will turn the 1936 election into a Landon victory.

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  7. John Boy,
    "Obama-haters" are people like me, who hate seeing Marxists slowly tear America down.
    This is a sad day for what once was a country of freedom, individual responsibility, and Constitutional values.
    You can slowly boil the frog for only so long (incremental socialism); then you may not like what happens when millions of us rise up to defeat you.
    We will not go peacefully into the darkness that is the scurge of Marxism. Loss of freedom and wealth redistribution is what you want - a fight is what you are going to get.
    Thank God for the 2nd Amendment!

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  8. In re: 11:35 PM poster. This person has no sense of how venomous his comments are. There's a hatred and fear here that pervade the whole Tea Party group, or at least deeply tarnish it. Racial slurs shouted at Members of Congress; homophobic slurs? Shouting baby-killer on the floor of the House? Sad stuff. The answer 11:35 is simple; you don't need the 2nd amendment, you need votes. Go get them, if you can.

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