Paul Ryan

Senate Republicans Vote Overwhelmingly For Controversial GOP Budget

Brian Beutler | May 16, 2012, 5:09PM

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell

Nearly all Senate Republicans joined their House colleagues in risky territory Wednesday by voting in support of the controversial GOP budget, authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) -- a blueprint for the country's future that has become a political lightning rod and a defining document for the 2012 elections.

Among its most contentious features, the plan would phase out the existing Medicare program and replace it with a subsidized private insurance system for seniors; dramatically slash Medicaid spending and hand the program over to the states; cut food and nutrition programs for poor people; and allow interest rates on student loans to double; all while dramatically reducing taxes, particularly on wealthy Americans.

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Student loan reform

What The Fight Over Student Loans Is Really About

Brian Beutler | April 26, 2012, 6:26AM

In a reprise of the winter fight over the payroll tax cut, Republicans are now reluctantly agreeing to support something that just weeks ago they strongly opposed: preventing student loan interest rates from doubling later this year.

It's an issue Republicans fear will fire up the youth vote -- a key Democratic constituency -- and in an effort to keep that bloc from flocking back to President Obama in November they're attempting to bigfoot Democrats on their own issue.

But the Republicans' strategy threatens to tear at existing divisions within the party, and exposes them once again to political repercussions over their unwillingness to finance any popular policies by raising taxes on wealthy people.

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Debt

Top Congress Scholar Says Country Could Easily Fall Off Fiscal Cliff In January

Brian Beutler | April 25, 2012, 5:57AM

Protestors demand "Cut Spending Now" near the Capitol building in Washington DC

A renowned congressional analyst thinks there's a good chance that the country could fall off a fiscal cliff on Jan. 1, no matter who wins this November.

At an American Enterprise Institute event on the future of Medicare Tuesday, AEI scholar Norm Ornstein outlined a scenario in which Congress falls on its face this winter, and fails to address the expiring Bush tax cuts and payroll tax holiday, automatic sequestration spending cuts, lapse of federal borrowing authority and other spending and tax provisions set to contract the budget automatically at the end of the year.

"Most of the cognoscenti in Washington say, Of course they'll reach an agreement because they can't not reach an agreement,'" Ornstein said. "Get inside the belly of the beast and you realize these days they can not reach an agreement."

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Medicare

How An 'Obamacare' Repeal Would Take Medicare And The Rest Of The Health Care System With It

Brian Beutler | April 24, 2012, 12:50PM

health care reform, obamacare, supreme court

If the Republican Party gets its way, it will repeal President Obama's health care law wholesale. Mitt Romney's committed to repealing it, as are the party's congressional leaders and rank-and-file members on Capitol Hill. That's the plan if they win big in November -- unless the Supreme Court beats them to the punch and overturns the entire law.

According to the Democratically-appointed public trustee of the Medicare program, that wouldn't just spell doom for "Obamacare," but for Medicare and the entirety of the country's ailing health care system.

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Barack Obama

Will Romney Become Obama's Weapon Against The GOP?

Sahil Kapur | April 24, 2012, 11:44AM

President Barack Obama and Senior Adviser David Axelrod

Mitt Romney lurched ever closer to the political center Monday, in a move that presages both dramatic implications on Capitol Hill and growing tensions between Romney and his GOP allies in Congress.

We've seen several signs that Romney is recalibrating for the general election in recent weeks -- he tacitly backed Democrats' equal-pay law and now articulates more widely his support for the principle behind the DREAM Act. But for the first time Monday, he waded into an ongoing legislative battle -- over student loans -- and sided with President Obama and the Democrats against House and Senate Republicans.

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Health Care

Romney Hints At Radical Health Care Reform Plan To Replace 'Obamacare'

Brian Beutler | April 24, 2012, 6:00AM

Mitt Romney

Likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney doesn't like to talk about the key details of his own plan for reforming the country's health care system -- the plan he'd push as a replacement to "Obamacare."

But if you string together what he has said publicly, you arrive at a plan that would be far more disruptive to the existing health care system than "Obamacare" would be if fully implemented.

That's what the Los Angeles Times did in a story that the White House missed and the Romney's campaign declined to discuss with TPM. What the Times arrived at is a plan broadly similar to the widely derided blueprint John McCain ran on in 2008.

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Barack Obama

Medicare, Social Security Reports Fuel Fight Over GOP Privatization Plan

Brian Beutler | April 23, 2012, 2:59PM

The Medicare and Social Security trustees presented mixed news for the country's two largest and most popular entitlement programs in annual reports released Monday. The analyses suggest that the 2008 economic crisis, and its lingering effects on the economy, have modestly weakened the programs' finances -- but that President Obama's health care law, if implemented as intended and matched with advancements in health care delivery, will extend the life of Medicare as expected.

The conclusions fuel an ongoing fight between the parties over the propriety of the programs, and the manner in which the federal government should act to provide sustainable retirement security for American workers. In particular, it puts the parties' vastly different views about Medicare back at the center of the 2012 election -- and will force Republicans to continue to defend their far-reaching plan to privatize that program.

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John Boehner

Boehner, Pelosi Spar Over History Of 'Grand Bargain' Fiasco

Sahil Kapur | April 20, 2012, 5:00AM

Nine months after the famed deficit negotiations between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner collapsed, the House's top Republican and top Democrat spent a full week sparring over what really happened at that critical July 2011 juncture. With a debt-limit driven economic crisis looming, Obama and Boehner neared a "grand bargain" on taxes and spending only to watch it splinter, then break apart completely at the 11th hour.

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Taxes

Boehner Dismisses Catholic Bishops' Criticism Of GOP Budget

Brian Beutler | April 18, 2012, 1:11PM

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)

House Speaker John Boehner wants the Conference of Catholic Bishops to rethink its stinging critique of the Republican budget, which it said "fails to meet ... moral criteria," of protecting human dignity, prioritizing the needs of the hungry and homeless and promoting the common good.

At his weekly Capitol press availability, Boehner cast the GOP's budget as a plan to preserve key federal support programs, which he said are growing unsustainable and will cease to exist without far-reaching reforms.

"What's more of a concern to me is the fact that if we don't begin to make some decisions about getting our fiscal house in order, there won't be a safety net, there won't be these programs," Boehner said. "When you look at the fact that we have to make hard decisions, it's about trying to make sure that we're able to preserve these programs that are critically important to the poorest in our society."

But the budget itself illustrates that the GOP has different priorities, reflecting the Bishops' concerns.

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war on women

Republicans Recite Dem Attack Lines -- With Little Hope Of Success

Brian Beutler | April 17, 2012, 5:00AM

Mitt Romney

For all the brainpower the parties put into prepping their talking points, you'd think an election as significant as this one would yield the most finely crafted political spin. Instead, on the key issues of the season, Republicans are picking up Democratic attack lines and hurling them back where they came from, word for word.

Democrats warn of GOP war against women. Mitt Romney, and the rest of the GOP, say the real aggressors in that war are President Obama and the Democrats. Democrats insist that Republicans want to end Medicare as we know it. Camp Romney says President Obama's health care law will end Medicare as we know it. Democrats say House GOP budget fails the fundamental test of fairness. House GOP budget guru Paul Ryan fires back, "The President's budget is not just a failure of math, but it also fails the fundamental test of fairness."

All that's missing are press releases that scream, "I know you are but what am I?!" Call it the Pee Wee Herman election.

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Barney Frank

Barney Frank Unloads On The 'Great Scam' Of Paul Ryan

Sahil Kapur | April 12, 2012, 6:08AM

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) unleashed a stinging attack on House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan in an interview with TPM, describing him as an ideologically driven extremist who doesn't deserve his reputation within the political establishment as a genuine fiscal hawk.

Labeling the House-passed GOP budget a "great scam," Frank cited its military spending hikes from current law levels as evidence that Ryan's primary goal isn't deficit reduction. He also cited Ryan's refusal to specify which tax loopholes he'll close as evidence of trickery.

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Medicare

What's Really Behind The Latest Conservative Attack On 'Obamacare'

Brian Beutler | April 11, 2012, 6:05AM

A new report by a Bush administration economist has reignited the spin wars over the fiscal soundness of President Obama's health care reform law, and is being promoted by conservatives as a counterweight to official, non-partisan government estimates that the law will reduce the deficit by billions of dollars over the next 10 years.

Making it all the more provocative is the fact that the author is the Republican Medicare trustee. His paper, published by the conservative Mercatus Institute, is designed to raise doubts about the soundness of the official estimates, causing editors and reporters, typically ill-equipped to adjudicate partisan disputes, to throw up their hands in frustration and cite it as a valid alternative to the consensus view that the health care law will improve the country's budget situation. But it goes further than that, in subtle attacks on both 'Obamacare' and Medicare, intentionally obscured by abstruse budget language and doomsday graphs.

At issue is the reform law's seemingly inconsistent claim that it will take money from Medicare to subsidize the uninsured while at the same time extending the solvency of Medicare itself. It's an impossible feat, opponents of entitlements argue, and proof that the law is nothing but fiscal smoke and mirrors. In reality this core promise of the health care reform law isn't fiscally inconsistent, but it gives conservatives a subtle way to chew away at the roots of popular entitlement programs.

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Health Care

White House Says GOP Budget A Disaster For Women

Brian Beutler | April 6, 2012, 5:36AM

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden

The Obama administration is hoping for a Friday three-fer.

Amid a political fight over women's rights that has caused GOP support among women to collapse; a Friday jobs report expected to show that the economy continues to grow rapidly; and an election year fight over the Republican Party's controversial budget, the White House will host a forum on women and the economy -- to highlight the administration's accomplishments in the area of women's rights, particularly in contrast with the Republican Party's governing platform.

The goal is to capitalize on all three simultaneously.

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Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney Doubles Down On Medicare Distortions

Sahil Kapur | April 5, 2012, 6:14AM

Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney made a series of claims Wednesday that distort President Obama's positions on Medicare, an indication that he's sticking with an earlier, misleading line of attack as he gets closer to winning the Republican nomination for president.

"I'd be willing to consider the president's plan, but he doesn't have one. That's right: In over three years, he has failed to enact or even propose a serious plan to solve our entitlement crisis," Romney said in a speech to the Newspaper Association of America in Washington, D.C. "Instead, he has taken a series of steps that end Medicare as we know it. He is the only president to ever cut $500 billion from Medicare. And, as a result, more than half of doctors say they will cut back on treating seniors."

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Barack Obama

Obama Attacks Romney, Republican Party In Fiery Budget Speech (VIDEO)

Brian Beutler | April 3, 2012, 2:02PM

President Barack Obama

In the fieriest speech of his presidency Tuesday, Barack Obama lit into the Republican Party's vision for the country's future as outlined in the House GOP budget, and endorsed by his most likely election rival Mitt Romney.

Obama decried key planks of the Republican agenda -- particularly calls for large tax cuts for wealthy Americans, and a plan to phase out traditional Medicare -- which he took care to describe accurately, though in hostile terms.

And in response to questions from the audience, Obama urged the press not to confuse rancor over the parties' competing visions for the country as typical partisan bitterness for which Democrats and Republicans are equally culpable.

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Medicare

GOP Failing To Find Dem Cover For Privatizing Medicare

Sahil Kapur | April 3, 2012, 6:10AM

Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY)

Republicans have a message on their plan to privatize Medicare: It's bipartisan. Democrats have a counter-message: Hell no, it's not.

As the GOP works to portray Rep. Paul Ryan's blueprint for Medicare as bipartisan, Democrats are working equally hard to keep their fingerprints off it. Dem operatives see the proposal -- which in 10 years would begin phasing out the existing program and replacing it with a subsidized exchange where seniors can shop for plans -- as a huge opportunity in the elections. House Republicans passed the plan last week without a single Democratic vote.

Now, Republicans are pushing to box in Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, as a former supporter of the "premium support" concept.

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Health Care

Repealing 'Obamacare' Would Explode Debt, Says Government Auditor

Brian Beutler | April 3, 2012, 6:05AM

A new report by an independent government auditor concludes that implementing President Obama's health care law as intended will make a significant dent in the long-term debt forecast.

The report comes as Supreme Court justices weigh striking some of "Obamacare's" central provisions -- and perhaps the law in its entirety -- and as the Republican Party remains committed to repealing the law if it seizes control of government in November.

"[I]f the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is implemented as intended it would have a major effect on the [fiscal] gap but would not eliminate it," the Government Accountability Office wrote in a Monday report -- a conclusion in line with its own past research and similar research conducted by other government and non-government analysts.

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Barack Obama

Obama: Ryan Budget Is 'Thinly Veiled Social Darwinism'

Sahil Kapur | April 3, 2012, 6:00AM

President Barack Obama speaks on the economy in Shaker Heights, OH on January 4, 2012.

Today the presidential gloves really come off.

In a Tuesday speech hosted by the Associated Press in Washington, D.C., President Obama will deliver a broadside to the House-passed Republican budget, which calls for upending Medicare and making deep cuts to domestic social programs. Obama will describe it as a dark vision for America and draw a clear contrast with his campaign themes of reducing inequality and asking the wealthy to help pay down the nation's debt.

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Paul Ryan

Cue The Ads: GOP Votes To Privatize Medicare In Election Year

Sahil Kapur | March 29, 2012, 4:44PM

Brave or politically suicidal?

For the second year in a row, Republicans voted Thursday to effectively dismantle Medicare -- this time, just over seven months before a presidential election. And Democrats are salivating at the political opportunity, eager to hang the vote around the neck of the party's presidential nominee and its candidates in tough congressional races.

"A year ago, nobody was talking about Democrats having a shot at the House. Now we're talking about it," a Democratic leadership aide told TPM after the vote, a party-line 228-191 that didn't win a single Dem.

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House Republicans

It's On: House GOP Preps For Vote On Radical Medicare Overhaul

Sahil Kapur | March 29, 2012, 5:52AM

Lost in the frenzy surrounding the Supreme Court health care arguments this week is an important development on Capitol Hill: House Republicans are poised to vote Thursday to drastically transform Medicare and spark another potential government shutdown battle.

The new budget plan by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) faces a floor vote Thursday -- it's a tweaked version of last year's blueprint that was relentlessly attacked by Democrats for "ending Medicare as we know it" in order to pay for large tax cuts for high-income earners. This year's blueprint also replaces Medicare with a subsidized insurance exchange, but keeps traditional Medicare alive as a public option among private plans that seniors can buy into.

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Medicare

GOP Slams Dems For Medicare Cuts Republicans Support

Sahil Kapur | March 25, 2012, 9:45AM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Houser Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA)

The latest "Mediscare" battle is rife with irony: Republicans are attacking a Medicare policy enacted by Democrats, even though they voted overwhelmingly to continue the policy last year and are supporting it again this year.

In a new TV ad, the House GOP's electoral arm NRCC targets Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH) for backing President Obama health care reform law, declaring that it will "decimate Medicare" and "shred the social safety net and leave seniors vulnerable at risk." The NRCC is also launching robocalls in 13 Democratic-held districts slamming the members over the Medicare cuts in the reform law.

The Affordable Care Act reduces Medicare spending by some $500 billion over 10 years, mostly with reimbursement cuts to private insurers and health providers -- the reductions do not touch benefits. The aim was to reduce over-payments and strengthen the life of the safety-net program.

As it turns out, nearly every Republican in the House and Senate voted last year to sustain those cuts in the Paul Ryan budget. And they're set to do so again in the near future as his updated Path To Prosperity blueprint comes up for a vote. That's the context of these ads -- Republicans know Democrats are about to hit them hard for again pushing a plan that partially privatizes Medicare and ends the coverage guarantee, so they're making a pre-emptive strike.

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Budget

How The GOP Budget Pulverizes Most Government Services (CHART)

Brian Beutler | March 22, 2012, 10:06AM

House Republicans' latest budget is a slightly new twist on a familiar theme: low taxes, particularly on the wealthiest, financed by extreme cuts to government spending programs. Knowing the GOP's -- and, frankly many Democrats' -- penchant for high levels of military spending, this mostly means unfathomably deep cuts to domestic health care, education, science and other programs.

Here's the twist. Last year, Republicans took a lot of guff for their plan to turn Medicare in to a subsidized private insurance system. That wasn't just because they proposed to privatize the program, but because the subsidies they proposed were extremely meager -- that's how it saved so much money.

This year, the budget calls for more generous subsidies. Which means that to hit the same long-term deficit targets, Ryan has to cut even deeper into other programs.

Here's how it looks graphically.

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House Republicans

GOP's Gambit To Alienate Dems On Medicare Savings Board

Sahil Kapur | March 22, 2012, 5:22AM

Republicans have lost some, if not all, of the bipartisan cover they once had for their effort to repeal a key piece of President Obama's health care law. Could they have done so on purpose?

One health policy insider thinks that's possible -- and sees a political upside to putting all Democrats on the wrong side of powerful interest groups.

"It's an election year," the industry lobbyist and former GOP aide told TPM in an email. "One doesn't need legislative victories ... just tough votes for the other team!"

At issue is the House's Thursday vote to repeal a powerful Medicare cost-cutting panel created by the Affordable Care Act. Many Democrats also dislike the so-called Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), and were set to join the GOP repeal effort. But that was before the GOP proposed paying for the cost of repealing it with a medical malpractice reform bill.

That will cost Republicans the support of dozens of Democrats who were otherwise on board to eliminate IPAB, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer told reporters. Repeal is also nonstarter in the Senate and faces a veto threat from the White House.

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White House

White House Disputes Report That Boehner-Obama Debt Deal Still On Table

Brian Beutler | March 20, 2012, 4:30PM

A senior White House official is disputing a key, but vague, detail in a weekend Washington Post article, which provided a number of new details about the final days of President Obama's unsuccessful attempt last summer to strike a grand bargain to stabilize the national debt with House Speaker John Boehner.

The two principals were nearing a framework that would have included higher tax revenues, unpopular cuts to Medicare and other spending reductions when the talks failed. That resulted in the debt limit deal and the ongoing fight between the parties over the federal safety net and taxes on the wealthy.

One of the Post's new details alarmed progressives.

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Budget

Deja Vu: House GOP Reignites The Medicare Fight With Its Budget

Brian Beutler | March 20, 2012, 11:36AM

On Tuesday, House Republicans unveiled an updated version of their controversial long-term budget -- a sweeping plan that envisions dramatically lower tax rates on wealthy Americans, deep cuts to federal support programs for the poor and the eventual phase-out of the existing Medicare system, which would be replaced by a subsidized private insurance system, including traditional Medicare as an option.

You can read the GOP gloss on their plan here. Among its claims: The latest "Path to Prosperity" "Restores economic freedom and ensures a level playing field for all by putting an end to special-interest favoritism and corporate welfare" and "cuts government spending to protect hardworking taxpayers."

The reaction from the White House was swift.

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HCR/SCOTUS

What's In A Mandate? Why SCOTUS May Take A Pass On 'Obamacare' -- For Now

Brian Beutler | March 20, 2012, 5:23AM

When the Supreme Court convenes next week to hear arguments about the constitutionality of President Obama's health care law, the first issue they will consider is the basic character of one of the law's crucial features: the requirement that uninsured Americans either purchase coverage or pay a fine to the federal government.

Better known as the individual mandate, it's the provision of the health care law at the heart of the GOP's constitutional complaint. The plaintiffs -- the 26 states suing over the law -- contend the individual mandate exceeds Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce, and the court's ruling on that issue could have the most sweeping legal impact, perhaps upending decades of Commerce Clause jurisprudence.

But before they get to the question of whether the individual mandate is an unconstitutional expansion of the Commerce Clause, the justices have agreed to consider whether they even have the power to take up this case, since the mandate does not go into effect for another two years. And that decision will ride on a fine distinction: Is the individual mandate a tax or is it a penalty?

The arguments they will hear, and the decision they ultimately reach, will determine whether the court can proceed to rule on the merits of the law, or whether they must punt on the substance until after the mandate takes effect in 2014. Either decision would place several key actors in awkward political predicaments without any easy escape routes.

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Medicare

Dems To GOP: No Cover From Us On Medicare Privatization Plan

Brian Beutler | March 19, 2012, 1:04PM

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

When House Republicans unveil their 2012 budget on Tuesday, they are expected to include a Medicare privatization plan endorsed by one Democrat -- Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). That, Republicans will claim, proves their controversial overhaul proposal has bipartisan support.

Leading Democrats say they won't let the GOP get away with it.

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Health Care

GOP Leaders Take Conservative Fire For Health Care Repeal Strategy

Sahil Kapur | March 19, 2012, 10:04AM

When top House Republicans advanced a bill this month aimed at repealing one of the most contentious parts of President Obama's health care law, they didn't see much downside. More bad press for health care reform, a splintered Democratic House minority and a consolidated Republican Party. They didn't look hard enough.

Not only have they managed to alienate some Democratic allies on the bill, slated for a floor vote this week, they're also facing heat from the right for targeting just the one provision of "Obamacare," instead of the law in its entirety.

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Budget

New Report Creates Confusion, Spin Over Obama Budget (CHART)

Brian Beutler | March 16, 2012, 5:34PM

A new Congressional Budget Office report has reignited the spin wars over President Obama's budget, and Republicans are eagerly blasting articles to reporters about how the administration would explode deficits and debt if left to its own devices.

But this line of attack is based on a questionable premise, familiar to veterans of the past year's budget wars.

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Medicare

New GOP Medicare Privatization Plan: Obamacare For Seniors Only?

Brian Beutler | March 15, 2012, 12:45PM

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)

You're a Republican senator. How do you sell a plan to privatize Medicare?

One way is to fashion the massive overhaul as an extension of the private system members of Congress enjoy -- the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan -- and then trumpet the merits of that system over existing Medicare.

"We have to convince [seniors] this is something better," said Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), flanked by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Rand Paul (R-KY), authors of a new Medicare privatization plan, at a Capitol press conference on Thursday. "If we thought Medicare was better, we would be on it as senators."

DeMint is 60 years old. Graham is 56. Paul is 49. Medicare eligibility age is 65.

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Medicare

House GOP Losing Dem Support For Quashing Medicare Cost-Saving Panel

Sahil Kapur | March 13, 2012, 5:38AM

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)

Republicans have had no luck convincing Democrats to adopt their controversial plan to convert Medicare into a subsidized private insurance system. But they have had some success convincing Democrats to abandon President Obama and his plan for making Medicare spending sustainable. At least until now.

With help from some Democrats, House committees last week cleared legislation that would repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), the Medicare cost-saving board created by Obama's health care law, and the GOP-led chamber is poised to pass it next week. But their new plan to pay for the bill with a medical malpractice reform measure is already costing them Democratic votes -- and thus weakening their claim that Obama's vision for Medicare faces bipartisan opposition.

It's the latest jab in the congressional shadowboxing over Medicare's future.

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Mitt Romney

The Many Misleading Claims In Mitt's Monday Medicare Memo

Brian Beutler | March 12, 2012, 12:59PM

As part of an effort to reverse the public's perception of the parties' positions on Medicare, Mitt Romney's campaign is appropriating a common Democratic attack and using it against President Obama. To wit, it's Obama, not Romney and the GOP, who plans to "end Medicare as we know it."

There are multiple, and conflicting, facets to this claim, all of which are intended to obscure one fundamental fact -- the GOP broadly supports a plan that, over years, will phase out traditional Medicare, and replace it with a subsidized private (or private-public) insurance system for seniors; President Obama supports, and has signed into law, efforts to make the existing single-payer Medicare plan more cost-effective in order to avoid "ending Medicare as we know it."

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Medicare

How The Affordable Care Act Could Quash The GOP's Dream Of Medicare Privatization

Sahil Kapur | March 12, 2012, 5:40AM

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden

What if "Obamacare" not only helped save Medicare from fiscal doom, but also quashed the GOP's longstanding goal of privatizing the program? It's too early to know what will ultimately happen, but new evidence suggests that nightmare scenario for conservatives is within the realm of possibility.

In a development with potentially profound implications -- both for Medicare itself and for the broader ideological fight between the two parties over the role of government -- researchers writing in the New England Journal of Medicine believe that the growth in per patient Medicare costs has slowed, contra earlier projections that spending would soar at an unsustainable rate. More importantly, the researchers believe this trend will hold over time, thanks largely to the Affordable Care Act's sweeping cost-control policies.

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Steny Hoyer

Dem, GOP Leaders Renew Push For Major Deficit Legislation

Brian Beutler | March 9, 2012, 5:30AM

Under fire from progressives for working with Republicans on legislation that would likely cut entitlements and raise taxes, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer told reporters Thursday he thinks there's an imperative to address long-run budget deficits rationally, before the end of the election, in a way that doesn't end the explicit guarantees of key government programs.

In a roundtable with reporters in his Capitol office, Hoyer said the group's still a long way from achieving broad consensus, but sought to reassure critics, constituents and other observers that he opposes the GOP's radical entitlement proposals.

"I want to emphasize, because I get beat up on, I'm for the Medicare guarantee, I'm not for a Paul Ryan alternative that eliminates the guarantee," he said. "[Some claim] I've said we ought to raise the age. I haven't said that. What I've said is I think everything ought to be on the table."

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Steny Hoyer

Progressives Petition Hoyer Against Safety Net Cuts

Brian Beutler | March 8, 2012, 8:33AM

Progressives are escalating their campaign to warn House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer off cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, as he quietly pursues significant deficit reducing legislation with members of both parties. On Thursday, they will deliver 148,000 petitions to his Capitol offices.

"Representative Hoyer is hearing from thousands of Americans letting him know that we will not stand for any back room deal that puts cuts to Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security benefits on the table," said Becky Bond, Political Director of CREDO Action, an online advocacy group. "[W]orking with Republicans on a deal which will preemptively cave on cuts to our social safety net is not acceptable from the second most powerful Democratic Leader in the House of Representatives."

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Claire McCaskill

McCaskill: Obamacare Is Like Ryancare For Non-Seniors

Sahil Kapur | March 8, 2012, 6:02AM

United States Senator Claire McCaskill (Democrat of Missouri) holds a press conference in the U.S. Capitol

Grilled about her support for the Affordable Care Act, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) told a home state radio interviewer that the law's core structure is "exactly" like the House GOP Medicare privatization plan that conservatives support and liberals detest.

"The irony of this situation is that these are private insurance companies people will shop to buy their insurance. It's not the government," she told KMOX of St. Louis on Wednesday. "It's exactly what Paul Ryan wants to do for Medicare."

"It's subsidized by the government -- premium subsidies -- which is exactly, this is the irony," continued McCaskill, who faces a tough reelection battle this fall. "You think what Paul Ryan wants to do for seniors, you think it's terrific. But when we want to provide private health insurance for people who don't have insurance with subsidies from the government, you think it's terrible."

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Mitt Romney

OOPS! Romney Lets Slip An Uncomfortable Truth About His Tax Plan

Brian Beutler | March 7, 2012, 10:06AM

Mitt Romney

On CNBC Wednesday morning, Mitt Romney was given a breather from political questions about his appeal to GOP primary voters and allowed to discuss substance. When it was all over, he probably wished it had been the other way around.

Brushing back a question about independent analyses, which conclude his plan will blow a huge hole in the budget, Romney accidentally hinted at a key fact about his fiscal policy: he left out all the hard stuff.

"I think it's interesting for the groups to try and score it because it can't be scored because those kind of details have to be worked out with Congress and we have a wide array of options," Romney said.

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Medicare

White House Doubts Congress Can Pass Deficit Bill Before The Election

Brian Beutler | March 6, 2012, 6:00AM

A senior administration official says the White House could support balanced deficit reduction legislation if Congress passes it before the end of the year -- but sees no evidence that Republicans have moved off their now higher tax revenue position, and thus doubt policymakers will be able to reach an agreement that President Obama can sign.

Here's the background.

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IPAB

Liberals Push Back Against GOP's Latest Salvo In Battle Over Medicare

Sahil Kapur | March 6, 2012, 6:00AM

President Barack Obama speaks on the economy in Shaker Heights, OH on January 4, 2012.

House Republicans are set to advance legislation to repeal a key plank of President Obama's health care law -- the cost-cutting Independent Payment Advisory Board -- and have enlisted several Democrats for a cause that's central to the conservative goal of phasing out traditional Medicare.

On Tuesday, the powerful House Energy & Commerce Committee is set to pass repeal of IPAB. The Ways & Means health subcommittee will also hold a hearing on it, bringing the measure closer to a floor vote, and advancing an ongoing fight about whether the government or private insurers should parcel finite health care resources.

While progressive health care reformers have effectively attacked the GOP's vision of a subsidized private health insurance system for seniors, they've been slow to close ranks around the health care law's competing vision of a leaner, more efficient Medicare. But there are signs this is changing.

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Budget

House GOP Caught In A New Budget Predicament

Sahil Kapur | March 5, 2012, 6:26AM

For most observers, the biggest question about the House Republicans' forthcoming budget is how they'll handle the issue of Medicare. Will they readopt the same phase-out and privatize policy that got them into political trouble last year? Or will they, at least to some extent, scale back their vision?

But the bigger question has nothing to do with Medicare. The bigger question is whether House Republicans can pass a budget at all.

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