Cool. This means nobody can say we have to compromise away Medicare benefits for political reasons. Since voters are overwhelmingly against cutting benefits. I guess the poll numbers would be similar for Social Security. People seem to really like it for some reason.

and what Congress actually does - no matter what sound bites we get from Congress - and so I fully expect cuts to both programs amid a clot of vague mumbling about the debit.

What we really are seeing is a refusal of those so called republican representatives to represent the views of the rank and file republicans who elected them. This is a huge problem and should be analyzed and addressed. That analysis leads one to actions to restore the rights of each voter to be equally represented. While we decry Citizens Unted, the republican led legislatures have stolen our rights to elect our members of the US House of Representatives here in Ohio by their Gerrymandering of Congressional districts. Using that Progressive supported process of petition and referendum we have collected sufficient signatures to change our state constitution in a way which will help prevent Gerrymandering and the election of those who are not representative of the citizenry's views. On November 6 when we vote we will enact the Ohio Independent Restricting Commission which will make our Congressional districts competitive and approximately the same size in population. In so doing , extreme views, such as complete support of a position for a lobbying position outside the mainstream will basically disappear and people in each party will be able to implement things both sides at the rankand file level agree on.
Rather than just point out what cognitive dissonance there is between the positions of teaparty led andbig money lobbyist backed corporatists republicans, we need to institue the process to give America back to the people and we can do this. Find out what progressive processes your state allows and use them to get what the country needs. Lets not just complain and hope the problem goes away. With Gerrymandering , our elected politicians do not have to do what the voters in their districts want and become more and more the puppets of big money. . Ohio on election day, lets give back our state. Of course it will not be complete until the following election in 2014, but we must do by voting for the Independent redistricting Commission in 2012. Help us republicans, we are counting on you to be Americans first.

why do they continue to vote Republican? If they're waiting for an Eisenhower type to run, they already have one sitting in the Oval Office. The Republican party of my father is long gone-the GOP has morphed into some slimy, putrid substance that serves no one but the elite.

It winds up being that they hear from the far right and far left that the gubbinmunt wants to take away their social safety nets. Remember, the teabaggers coined catfood commission even while arguing for small government. It somehow became part of the left lexicon as well. It's crazy.

The Repukes want to eliminate them, and far too many Dems are OK with compromise and lesser cuts. Since when is if "far left" to advocate for what most of the population wants?

The Republican fanatics watch only Fox News, and they firmly believe that Obama cut Medicare and that his cuts to Medicare will eventually mean benefit cuts. The administration has to do a far, far better job of explaining what Obama cut with regard to Medicare. The explanation has to be simple enough for the Fox voters to understand. That means that it has to be very, very concrete. There have to be graphs and pictures, not just the vague, abstract concepts that we have heard thus far.

Stephanie Cutter's video on this is pretty good, but even it is not nearly explicit enough. In particular, it is difficult for people to understand -- even for me to understand -- how the ACA cuts Medicare Advantage without cutting benefits and just how the cap on insurance company profits will be managed and what result it will achieve.

The ACA's cuts to Medicare have to be explained much more clearly than they have been. The claim that fraud is being eliminated has to be proved to people. Democrats have a lot of work to do on presenting this message -- assuming the Democrats' claims are true.

--and laundry lists. What we need is a firm values-based advocacy on behalf of traditional GOVERNMENT Medicare, a vital lifeline for seniors. Tell them that the Repukes have been working to eliminate Medicare ever since 1965, and that Paul Ryan wants to give them a silly coupon to use on the same kind of private insurance that seniors couldn't afford before 1965, and that Republican Senator Jim DeMint has proposed eliminating Medicare entirely in 2014.

We are making a notebook of items on issues. You should make your post into an article. Thanks again.

& SS.

yet there is none.

question is, why?

Repeatedly. When you listened to Ryan talk about it in that Repub-friendly retirement city, you never heard the phrase "premium support" or any of the euphemisms for voucher or coupon.

If you were a fox-informed person, you'd never know that the plan is to make the benefits unreliable.

never ceases to amaze me. They want to protect Medicare benefits, so they shoot their-self in the foot and vote republican? What the hell!!