GOP looks forward to “reinforcements” in war against Social Security and Medicare

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), author of the GOP blueprint for running the country, the Roadmap for America’s Future, hopes that with the election of more GOP members to the House “”reinforcements are coming.” Why should seniors worry about this? Simply because the Roadmap pushes to “privatize Social Security and turn Medicare into a voucher system.”

Although in deference to election-year double-talk, the GOP has tried to keep a distance from the Roadmap, it isn’t hard to believe that, as Ryan declares, “‘dozens’ of House candidates have privately confided in him that they support the plan.”

I’m betting that many of those Roadmap supporters might even be from Missouri – pure speculation of course, but consider how poorly some of our GOPers have managed to hide their distaste for Social Security and Medicare over the past few years.

Roy Blunt may be leaving the House, but if he has his way this November, he’ll certainly bring the Roadmap mindset to the Senate. His grab bag “Jobs Plan,” where he proposes something he calls “real entitlement reform,” comes to mind immediately. We can guess what that reform would look like since he has regularly voted to slash Medicare benefits in the past. And, of course, there are his own words to the effect that it “would have been best if Medicare and Medicaid never existed,” and if we had privatized Social Security “quicker, like a decade, decades ago“.

Todd Akin is usually pretty cagey, but is on the record for being favor of privatizing Social Security. For instance, in a 2008 OpEd, in which he gushingly expressed his gratitude for George W. Bush’s “leadership,” Akin explicitly praised Bush’s effort to privatize Social Security:

You [i.e., Bush] had the courage to grab the “third rail of American politics” – Social Security – and alert Americans that the system is mathematically and economically broken

Although Akin, along with Blunt, has made lots of noise about the fact that the Affordable Care Act cuts private insurance subsidies for Medicare Advantage, he was one of the few Republicans who voted against Bush’s  Medicare Modernization Act which expanded drug benefits and set up those subsidies. Akin has also voted to slash billions from Medicare benefits over the years.

Another GOP poobah wannabe, Ed Martin, would, if elected, add a recruit to the Roadmap program as well. Although Martin has made all the required statements about the sanctity of Social Security, his record indicates that he isn’t too trustworthy. Additionally, he seems to be just a little too manic to keep his real agenda under his sleeve, tweeting:

Gotta find the Rep. Paul Ryan clips @MarkReardonkmox played. Ryan is THE man with THE plan!

So, there are at least three and probably more (Blaine Luetkemeyer comes to mind) supporters of Paul Ryan’s destructive agenda from Missouri. Of the three discussed above, Akin is a shoo-in since his opposition, Democratic candidate Arthur Lieber, disdains a realistic campaign, and Blunt and Martin are maybes. If we value Social Security and Medicare, we have to do whatever we can to make sure that they become “no ways.”