Key Facts

Bloomberg: Ryan Health Plan Doesn’t Give Constituents What He Gets

Paul Ryan has likened his Medicare overhaul to the health-care coverage available to members of Congress. It differs in one main respect: It’s less generous. Republican vice presidential candidate Ryan’s plan to revamp the health-care program for the elderly wouldn’t have the safeguards against rising costs included in the coverage that lawmakers and other federal workers receive.

Those differences, which help explain the savings claimed in Ryan’s budget, are sparking complaints that Republicans want to impose a plan on the elderly that’s inferior to their own.

[…]

The difference comes down to who bears the risk of rising health-care costs, said Uwe Reinhardt, a health-care economist at Princeton University in New Jersey.

“It’s the allocation of risk,” he said. Under Ryan’s plan, “the risk of rapid health-spending inflation, should it happen, is borne by the elderly and with the congressmen, it’s taxpayers.”

Read all about it here: Bloomberg News >>

Republicans' Attack on Medicare Cuts? False.

Republicans' attacks that Democrats "gutted Medicare" are just false. Truth is, Republicans voted for a budget that will cause seniors to pay more out-of-pocket and turn Medicare into a voucher program. See the link below for examples of Republicans being called out for their false attacks.

BREAKING. Republican Budget Would Result in 800,000 American Jobs Shipped Overseas

According to a Center for American Progress study using an analysis by Reed College economist Kimberly Clausing, Republicans’ 2012 budget - which contained a territorial tax system like the one proposed by Mitt Romney and analyzed here – would result in “800,000 jobs in low-tax countries and potentially displacing U.S. jobs.” According to the study, a territorial system “would exacerbate the wrost features of our current tax system. It would: enhance the tax code’s rewards for moving jobs and investments overseas; provide a gratuitous windfall to some of the very companies that have already shifted jobs and profits overseas; further invite the offshore tax haven abuse that deprives the U.S. Treasury of tens of billions of dollars in revenue every year.” [Center for American Progress, 7/16/12]

Clarification on HR 3 Research

The following is a correction to some information posted in these pages about HR 3, the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act." This Act was commonly referred to as legislation where Republicans would "redefine rape." If this issue is relevant to you, please read this.

More GOP Hypocrisy on Spending... Republicans Top Spending on Taxpayer Funded Glossy Mailers

Updated: Republicans Protect Their Perks. Republicans voted against cutting 10% of what they spent on franked mail in 2011 from their budget. [HR 5882, Vote #376, 6/08/12]

More examples HERE.

See stories HERE and HERE and on the Races page of members highlighted in these stories.

Two new reports show that Republican members who “loved to rail against their incumbent foes’ use of Congressional mailing privileges as a symbol of the fiscal dysfunction of Congress… have become the biggest users of the House’s taxpayer-funded mailing system.”

• Republican freshmen who came to Congress last year promising to transform Washington's free-spending culture are no different from most other lawmakers in at least one respect: They mailed out millions of taxpayer-funded flyers and brochures during their first year in office. The 87 GOP members of the freshman class sent more than 25.6 million pieces of unsolicited mail last year at a cost of nearly $9.8 million, according to a review of records compiled by the chief administrative officer of the House. [USA Today, 5/15/12]

• Back in the heady days of the 2010 election, tea-party-backed GOP candidates loved to rail against their incumbent foes’ use of Congressional mailing privileges as a symbol of the fiscal dysfunction of Congress and the need for sweeping reforms. So it might come as a surprise to some of their conservative supporters that once safely ensconced in their Congressional offices, many of those same critics have become the biggest users of the House’s taxpayer-funded mailing system. [Roll Call, 6/19/12]

Republicans Protect Their Perks. Republicans even voted against cutting 10% of what they spent on franked mail from their budget. [HR 5882, Vote #376, 6/08/12]

See more HERE and HERE and on the Races page of members highlighted in these stories.

Republicans Putting Their Perks and Pay Before their Constituents

Republicans Voted to Cut Medicare and Assistance for Veterans...

Republicans voted to deeply cut Medicare and raise seniors’ health care costs

Background: House Republicans voted to pass a plan that ends Medicare, and replaces it with a voucher program for Americans under the age of 55. This would raise seniors’ costs, reduce benefits, and put private insurance companies in charge of seniors’ health care. Under the House Republicans’ proposed voucher system, seniors would lose the Medicare guarantee of a defined set of benefits and instead simply get an increasingly inadequate voucher. According to the nonpartisan CBO, the GOP plan would increase seniors’ out-of-pocket health care costs by more than $6,000 in 2022.

Source: FY2012 Ryan Budget, H.Con.Res. 34, Vote #277, 04/15/11.

Republicans voted to against assisting homeless Veterans

Background: In 2011, House Republicans voted to eliminate $75 million from the program that provides assistance to homeless veterans.

Source: H.R. 1, Vote #147, 02/19/11.

Republicans voted to balance the budget on the backs of our Veterans 

Background: The measure would have prohibited the House of Representatives or the Senate from considering any balanced budget amendment to the Constitution that could result in a reduction in Veterans’ benefits.

Source: Motion to Recommit on H.R. 2560, Vote #605, 07/19/11.

...But Voted to Protect Their Own Perks and Pay

Republicans voted to keep first-class flights at taxpayer expense

Background: The Democratic Budget would have prohibited Members from using taxpayer funds to purchase first-class airfare or to lease corporate jets.

Source: Democratic Budget, H.Amdt. 1004, Vote #150, 03/29/12.

Republicans refused to cut taxpayer funding for the Member gym, beauty salon, barber shop, and the House dining room

Background: The Democratic Budget would have required the House Administration Committee to cut taxpayer subsidies for the Member gym, barber shop, beauty salon, and House dining room. 

Source: Democratic Budget, H.Amdt. 1004, Vote #150, 03/29/12. 

Read more about Republicans putting their own pay and perks first >>

Republican Freshmen Caught "Begging" Republican Leaders to Bring Back Earmarks

According to Politico, House Republican freshmen have been caught "begging" Republican leaders to bring back earmarks. Sixty-five House Republican freshmen signed a letter in support of earmarks "even though it runs counter to the earmark ban Republicans campaigned on in 2010 and instituted when they took power."

"And in typical Washington fashion, [Republicans] think they’ve found a loophole that will get [these earmarks] past the ban," Politico reported.

While these Republican freshmen break their promise and push for taxpayer-funded earmarks, they continue to support ending Medicare and raising health care costs for seniors. [Politico, 4/23/12]

See which House Republican freshmen were caught begging to bring back earmarks here.

GOP Conference rules specifically ban "a congressional earmark, limited tax benefit or limited tariff benefit, as such terms have been described in the rules of the House." [GOP Conference Rules, 2/16/11]

42 House Republicans Voted Against Tariff Bills in 2010 Because they Were Earmarks. On July 21, 2010, forty-two House Republicans—including John Boehner and Eric Cantor—vote against the “The U.S. Manufacturing Enhancement Act” which was otherwise known as the miscellaneous tariff bill.  According to Michael Steel, a spokesman for then-House Minority Leader John Boehner, “The House Republican Conference voted to adopt an earmark moratorium, and voting for this legislation would violate that moratorium.” [HR 4380, Vote #456, 7/21/10; Associated Press, 7/21/10; Politico, 7/20/10]

Click here to see the hypocritical statements House Republican freshmen made opposing earmarks before they were caught "begging" for them.

Republicans Voted to End Medicare

In 2011, the GOP voted for the Republican Budget which would End Medicare for Americans younger than 55.

The bill passed 235-193. [H Con Res 34, Vote #277, 4/15/11]

Nobel Prizing Winning Economist: “How is This Not an End to Medicare?” “The new scheme would still be called ‘Medicare’, but it would bear little resemblance to the current system, which guarantees essential care to all seniors. How is this not an end to Medicare?” [Paul Krugman, Nobel Prizing winning economist, 12/20/11]

Former Fed Chief: The House Republican Budget “Threatens to Eviscerate Medicare.” “The plan threatens to eviscerate Medicare by privatizing it—with vouchers that, absent some sort of cost-control miracle, would fall further and further behind the rising cost of health insurance.” [Alan Blinder a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, 4/19/11]

Concord Monitor Columnist: The House Republican Budget “Purely and Simply Ends Medicare.” The House Republican budget “purely and simply ends Medicare. Period.” [Concord Monitor’s Kathy Burns, 4/17/11]

Medicare Advocate: The House Republican Budget Would “Destroy” Medicare. “Over time, this [House Republican Budget] will destroy the only health insurance program available to 47 million Americans,” [Max Richtman, executive vice-president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, 4/5/11]