Tea Party To Push Paul Ryan Medicare Plan In Town Halls

[Derechos]

WASHINGTON -- With Medicare at the top of lawmakers' fall agenda, Tea Party movement leaders hope to ignite support for Republican plans to transform the popular federal healthcare program for the elderly.

Thousands of Tea Party movement activists are expected to descend this month on town hall meetings across key battleground states as part of an intensifying campaign ahead of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections.

Their priority is a plan to slash Medicare costs proposed by House of Representatives Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, which could gain momentum now that a debt-limit deal between President Barack Obama and Congress has made potential Medicare cuts a centerpiece of the deficit debate.

A new congressional committee charged with finding $1.5 trillion in spending cuts by November 23 is expected to focus on Medicare, and the program would see automatic cuts if the committee failed to reach agreement, or if Congress did not approve its recommendations by December 23. Market values of companies that depend on Medicare spending fell more than 10 percent in a sell-off on Wall Street after the agreement.

"The August town halls are going to be, potentially, a referendum on Democrats who don't care and Republicans who've dared to offer real policy solutions, particularly on things like entitlements," said Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, the small-government advocacy group organizing the initiative.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/03/tea-party-medicare-paul-ryan_n_917347.html

[MinneapolisMatt]

1. *snort*

Poor dears, they simply don't realize how many they've pissed-off outside the beltway.

[mindem]

2. What about jobs????

[abelenkpe]

3. Good. Let's fill those town halls with people pushing Medicare For All nt

[Warpy]

4. Good luck with that one, Koch heads!

Ryan got razzed to the point he's not doing his own dirty work. You won't like it any more than he did.

Vouchercare is NOT MEDICARE. We need to shout these idiots down.

[jmowreader]

5. Indiscriminate cuts are not "real policy solutions"

Things like getting rid of Medicare Part D and opening up the VA's prescription service to Medicare beneficiaries would be real policy solutions.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. That should be interesting.

:popcorn: