Budgets.

Guy Benson has a useful bullet-point summary. This budget is less realistic than Ryan’s last two budgets, but that’s because the purpose of introducing a budget this year is different than it was the past two years. Philip Klein explains the wishful thinking involved: Ryan’s budget is likely to come under criticism from several fronts, [...]

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Waste, fraud, and abuse.

Members of Congress often argue that all of the problems in Medicare and Medicaid can be solved by working on “waste, fraud, and abuse.”  The good news is that Senator Robert Menendez has been hard at work on the problem.  The bad news is that he’s been working to protect it, at least according to [...]

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No mandate for Obama.

If you want to see why American politics are so dysfunctional, just take a look at American voters.  In a new Washington Post/ABC News poll, there is a broad consensus that Barack Obama and Republicans should reach a compromise to fix the fiscal cliff.  Only a third believe that Obama has a mandate to insist [...]

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Raise the roof.

I didn’t believe this when I saw it at WaPo yesterday, then I started to wonder when I read Ed’s post this morning, and now Ezra Klein claims Democrats are telling him the same thing. I thought the GOP’s big Plan B alternative to a grand bargain was to extend the Bush tax cuts for [...]

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Including 39% of Republicans.

Well, that $80 billion a year will come in handy, no?  That’s the impression that six in ten Americans have as a solution to the trillion-dollar deficits in the latest Washington Post/ABC poll — and 39% of Republicans, too.  The result demonstrates the political leverage of Democrats in the fiscal-cliff fight, and perhaps the leeway [...]

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Entitlements.

Congressional Democrats are starting to draw a much tougher line on entitlements in the increasingly messy fiscal cliff talks, warning Republicans to keep their hands off Social Security and Medicare benefits… For many Democrats, these entitlement programs are part of their core identity — aggressively protecting the social safety net programs created by the New [...]

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Sunshine.

According to a new poll by the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald, we can put Florida firmly into Mitt Romney’s column.  With just three days left for campaigning, Romney has a 51/45 lead over Barack Obama in a state Obama won by three in 2008.  Romney even takes an edge in foreign policy now [...]

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"I don't just talk about change."

General knowledge seems to be starting to lean towards “Romney has pretty much nailed down Florida,” but I suppose you can never be too careful, and Romney is taking today to campaign in the Sunshine State with popular GOPers Sen. Marco Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush by his side before moving on to Virginia [...]

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Untenable.

Team Obama has attacked Mitt Romney over Medicare cuts even before Romney added Paul Ryan to the ticket, and certainly that’s been a major campaign theme for Democrats ever since.  Romney has responded by pointing out that Obama cut more than $700 billion from Medicare not to strengthen the program, but to expand Medicaid at [...]

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Plus -- Biden making people feel awkward, or: Biden being Biden.

Campaigning on his boss’s behalf in Florida today, Vice President Joe Biden told rally attendees that, if elected, Mitt Romney’s tax and deficit-cutting plans could mean higher costs for Medicare and Social Security beneficiaries — in addendum to my post this morning, its seems like this ‘$460 tax increase/year on seniors’ is one of Team [...]

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"The reality of Social Security is this is a much less imminent problem than Medicare."

David Axelrod ran into a buzz saw this morning, and on MSNBC, of all places.  Time’s Mark Halperin asks a rather predictable question of Axelrod, noting that Barack Obama never mentioned Social Security reform in his 60 Minutes interview last night (and Steve Kroft apparently never asked about it, either).  Where’s the plan, Halperin asks [...]

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Boo, hiss.

Paul Ryan spoke at the AARP‘s annual convention in New Orleans on Friday to speak to seniors about his plan to reboot Medicare, taking the stage after a via-satellite appearance from President Obama. Some members of the audience were a little on the openly unfriendly side (most of the headlines I’m seeing are variations of [...]

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"...at the mercy of insurance companies"?

I know that every campaign promise Barack Obama makes has an expiration date … but this is ridiculous.  The confetti is barely off the floor at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina after Obama’s acceptance speech, and already we find out that he’s flip-flopped.  Remember this part of the speech, in which [...]

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Ramussen's data confirms.

Mitt Romney has enjoyed surprising strength among seniors — perhaps even more surprisingly after adding entitlement-reform crusader Paul Ryan to the ticket.  Most assume that the argument over raiding Medicare Advantage now to pay for ObamaCare costs later have resonated much more strongly than Democrats expected, and that’s probably true.  Glenn Reynolds argues in a [...]

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Boomerang.

An important addendum to Ed’s CBS/NYT number-crunch from lefty Greg Sargent: The breakdown sent over by CBS: * In Florida, 48 percent of seniors say Romney would do a better job on Medicare, versus 44 percent who say that about Obama (the Ryan pick was supposed to be particularly problematic in this state). * In [...]

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A majority among seniors.

That’s not exactly how the Post headlines its official coverage of the latest results from its poll series, but Aaron Blake at the Fix does a little better with the data.  Overall, Paul Ryan and Joe Biden are fairly even in polling, with the incumbent at 43/43 and the newly-minted challenger at 41/37: Both parties’ [...]

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On offense.

On the campaign trail this week, Ryan’s discussion of Medicare has focused on President Obama’s taking $716 billion from Medicare to pay for Obamacare, along with brief reassurances that he and Mitt Romney will protect the program. But in Florida today, Ryan put Medicare front and center. He both stepped up his attacks on Obamacare’s [...]

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"That's a promise we have to keep."

Paul Ryan stayed on the attack today in Florida, appearing at the retirement center The Villages, along with a special guest — his mother. “When I think about Medicare,” Ryan told a cheering crowd, “it’s not just a program. It’s not just numbers. It’s what my Mom relies on.” Continuing to attack Barack Obama over [...]

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Serious.

The youngsters were running the show in Springfield, Va., on Friday, where 42-year-old Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan took the stage after being introduced by two 44-year-olds: Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and former Alabama Rep. Artur Davis… “We have a very serious choice to make,” Ryan told the crowd. “And what Mitt Romney [...]

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Boomerang.

Democrats thought that naming Paul Ryan to the Republican ticket would allow them to Mediscare seniors back to Barack Obama.  The Wall Street Journal takes no small delight in describing just how well that strategy has worked in the first week of Ryan’s candidacy for VP.  Thanks to ObamaCare and the redirection of Medicare funds [...]

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Plans.

Taking command of the French 9th army in 1914 as it retreated before the Germans, Marshal Ferdinand Foch uttered his immortals words: “Hard pressed on my right. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent. I attack.”… In the Medicare debate, schoolyard rules apply: Punch the bully in the mouth twice as hard. If [...]

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Lessons.

Via Ace, who rightly points to Karl’s post here yesterday as anticipating how the GOP will run this Medicare offensive. Normally I think visual aids on the trail risk turning voters off because they’re too self-consciously didactic, but not this time. As Virginia Postrel says, wonking out might be just the ticket: We’re in another [...]

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A big gamble -- that's paying off.

So says Kirsten Powers in the Daily Beast.  Forget Republicans and Democrats, the center-left commentator writes — this election is about Baby Boomers vs everyone else in America.  Mitt Romney has chosen the first major-ticket representative of what Powers calls The Screwed Generation, and Ryan may be their last hope to keep from falling into [...]

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Medic.

Presumptive Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan launched an offensive on President Barack Obama’s cuts to medicare to pay for ObamaCare, his first public reference to the issue since accepting the role as Mitt Romney’s running mate. “The president took $716 billion from the Medicare program, he raided it, to pay for ObamaCare,” Ryan expained, [...]

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