By John Ballard
Joe Paduda's comments regarding Rep. Ryan's rejoinder to SOTU deserve widespread exposure. The media are missing a Very. Big. Story.
It's hard to know if it's being overlooked for lack of courage or intelligence. I suspect some of both.
What Mr Ryan conveniently forgets, or more likely avoids, is this:
Seven short years ago he - and his GOP buddies - passed the single largest entitlement program since Medicare - the Medicare Part D drug benefit with no dedicated financing, no offsets and no revenue-generators - the entire cost - which is now around sixteen trillion dollars - simply added to the federal budget deficit.
The health reform bill has many warts - as I've noted time and time again - yet one it does NOT have is adding sixteen trillion dollars to the deficit. According to Bruce Bartlett writing in the Fiscal Times, "By 2030, Part D alone will cost taxpayers 1 percent of GDP."
The complete failure of the mainstream media to note this blindingly obvious hypocrisy is stunning.
I couldn't find a single instance where the MSM commenters noted this hypocrisy; there were a few in the blogosphere, but none from mainstream pundits and talking heads.
Let's suspend reality and accept the GOP's claim that health reform will add $700 billion to the deficit. That's one-twentieth of the deficit from Part D.
That's right - Paul Ryan's Part D added twenty times more to the Federal deficit than even he claims reform will. Yet in his comments he didn't once offer to end, or fix, or reduce Part D. Ryan was long on problem, and non-existent on solutions - perhaps because he's a big part of the problem himself.
Where's the accountability? How can he get away with this? Why isn't the main stream media at least reporting on this? Commenting? Perhaps just noting in passing?
>> Why isn't the main stream media at least reporting on this?
ReplyDeleteBecause the profit-and-power-driven corporate media's goal is to entertain and bamboozle the public, rather than to inform.