Exclusive: 2012 candidate Gary Johnson wants more Medicare cuts than the House GOP

[Playinghardball]

Source: Raw Story
By Sahil Kapur

WASHINGTON – Republican 2012 presidential hopeful Gary Johnson believes the GOP's unpopular blueprint to replace Medicare with a subsidies system should cut even deeper, and he isn’t shy about saying so.

"As president I would sign the plan into law, because it does move forward on the issue," the former governor of New Mexico told Raw Story in a wide-ranging interview. "But I think it doesn’t go far enough."

So, what would Johnson do?

He would do to Medicare what the House-passed plan by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) does to Medicaid: turn the program into block grants for states. His plan would cut Medicare by 43 percent and eliminate "all

More at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/23/exclusive-2012-candidate-gary-johnson-wants-more-medicare-cuts-than-the-house-gop/

[suston96]

1. The people are waking up........

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ap-gfk-poll-federal-budget-can-be-balanced-without-cutting-social-security-and-medicare/2011/05/23/AFPpba9G_story.html?nl_headlines

AP-GfK Poll: Federal budget can be balanced without cutting Social Security and Medicare
By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, May 23, 12:47 AM

WASHINGTON — They’re not buying it. Most Americans say they don’t believe Medicare has to be cut to balance the federal budget, and ditto for Social Security, a new poll shows.

The Associated Press-GfK poll suggests that arguments for overhauling the massive benefit programs to pare government debt have failed to sway the public. The debate is unlikely to be resolved before next year’s elections for president and Congress.

Americans worry about the future of the retirement safety net, the poll found, and 3 out of 5 say the two programs are vital to their basic financial security as they age. That helps explain why the Republican Medicare privatization plan flopped, and why President Barack Obama’s Medicare cuts to finance his health care law contributed to Democrats losing control of the House in last year’s elections.

Medicare seems to be turning into the new third rail of politics.

“I’m pretty confident Medicare will be there, because there would be a rebellion among voters,” said Nicholas Read, 67, a retired teacher who lives near Buffalo, N.Y. “Republicans only got a hint of that this year. They got burned. They touched the hot stove.”

Combined, Social Security and Medicare account for about a third of government spending, a share that will only grow. Economic experts say the cost of retirement programs for an aging society is the most serious budget problem facing the nation. The trustees who oversee Social Security and Medicare recently warned the programs are “not sustainable” over the long run under current financing.

Nearly every solution for Social Security is politically toxic, because the choices involve cutting benefits or raising taxes. Medicare is even harder to fix because the cost of modern medicine is going up faster than the overall cost of living, outpacing economic growth as well as tax revenues.


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