Tom Coburn

Coburn: End 'Welfare For The Well-Off'

David Taintor | November 15, 2011, 12:59PM

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK)

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) thinks it's time America's millionaires pay their fair share.

And in a new report -- titled "Subsidizing the Rich and Famous" -- Coburn makes an argument for closing loopholes for millionaires. "From tax write-offs for gambling losses, vacation homes, and luxury yachts to subsidies for their ranches and estates, the government is subsidizing the lifestyles of the rich and famous," Coburn writes in the report. "This welfare for the well-off -- costing billions of dollars a year -- is being paid for with the taxes of the less fortunate, many who are working two jobs just to make ends meet, and IOUs to be paid off by future generations."

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Medicare

Ryan Defends Medicare Privatization As Strengthening 'Welfare For Those Who Need It'

Brian Beutler | May 16, 2011, 2:30PM

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) wants Congress to retain control of the fees that the United States Patent and Trademark Office collects and divert them to other government programs.

Speaking in broad terms Monday before the Economic Club of Chicago, House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) defended his controversial proposals to slash entitlement spending and privatize Medicare.

Though billed as an effort to revamp his widely criticized budget, Ryan avoided describing his health care plans in specific detail, eschewing even the friendly terms he and other Republicans have used to explain it since he first unveiled it earlier this year. Instead, Ryan reframed the entitlement cuts in his budget as "strengthen[ing] welfare for those who need it," and accused Democrats who have attacked his budget as engaging in class warfare.

The House budget would phase out the existing Medicare program and replace it with a new program to provide future retirees with private insurance subsidies, which would shrink in value over time relative to steeply rising health care costs. This stands in contrast to the fairly broad consensus among Democrats that health care costs are best reined in by altering provider incentives and placing some restrictions on government-financed health care services, while allowing Medicare to remain a single-payer program for all beneficiaries.

Ryan characterized this distinction differently.

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Michigan

GOP State Senator Tries, Fails To Force Poor Kids To Shop At Thrift Stores

Evan McMorris-Santoro | April 25, 2011, 9:10AM

State Sen. Bruce Caswell (R-MI)

Michigan state Sen. Bruce Caswell (R) suggested that children in the state on public assistance be forced to spend their annual clothing allowance at thrift stores, lest the $80 allocated to them every year go to something other than new duds.

In the end, he didn't get what he wanted. But he was able to make sure that $80 will go to clothes and nothing but -- and that people who use the state's Bridge Card electronic benefit system have to go through an extra step before buying clothes for children in their care.

The Republican acknowledges that neither plan would save the economically-listing Michigan a dime. Caswell says he just wants to make sure welfare money is spent on what it's supposed to be spent on.

Caswell's original plan -- which would have made clothing allowance funds redeemable only at thrift stores like Goodwill -- kicked up some ire among progressives in Michigan and around the country. But Caswell told Michigan Public Media that there's nothing wrong with wearing old clothes.

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Paul Broun

GOP Rep. Broun: FDR Was A Communist (VIDEO)

Jillian Rayfield | April 14, 2011, 8:49AM

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) thinks President Franklin Delano Roosevelt loved Joseph Stalin so much that he sent advisers to Russia to see "what Stalin was doing there so that FDR could replicate it here in the United States."

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NV-SEN

The Best Of Anti-Government (And Gov't Benefit-Receiving) Sharron Angle

Eric Kleefeld | September 29, 2010, 9:02AM

NV Sen. candidate Sharron Angle (R)

With the recent news that Sharron Angle, the Republican nominee for Senate in Nevada who is running on a platform of tearing down big government, actually receives government health care benefits through her husband's pension as a former federal employee, let's take a look at some of her best anti-government lines.

It is, of course, quite interesting that a candidate who so strongly opposes the federal government receives compensation from them. So let's keep in mind some of these really, really anti-government positions she has taken.

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NV-SEN

Angle Campaign: Yes, GOPer Benefits From Government Health Care And Pension

Eric Kleefeld | September 28, 2010, 3:10PM

US Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R-NV)

Here's another fun wrinkle in the Nevada Senate race, where Republican nominee Sharron Angle supports privatizing Social Security and all the major federal health care programs: She and her husband receive their own health care and a pension through the federal government.

Granted, Angle's husband Ted Angle receives his pension and health care as a former federal employee -- not directly through a social welfare program. Then again, Angle's proposals to slash government aren't all that friendly to federal employees, either.

Angle spokeswoman Ciara Matthews said in a statement:

"Mr. Ted Angle receives his pension through the (federal) Civil Service Retirement System. While it is not supplemented by the federal government, current civil servants pay into the program to pay the schedule of those already retired - much like how the Social Security Program works today. Mr. Angle does not qualify - nor does he receive Social Security benefits. His health insurance plan (the Federal Employee Health Program), which also covers Sharron, is a continuation of what he was receiving while he worked for the federal government."

The TPM Poll Average currently gives Harry Reid a lead of 47.2%-44.9%.

(Via Politico and Think Progress.)

Joe Miller

Homeowning Lawyer Joe Miller Sought Low-Income Hunting And Fishing License In Alaska

Brian Beutler | September 28, 2010, 9:17AM

Republican candidate for US Senate in Alaska Joe Miller

The evidence of tea party hypocrisy is long, and always growing.

The latest entry: In 1995 conservative Joe Miller, who wants to end the welfare state, acquired low-income hunting and fishing licenses, meant for families with an annual income of less than $8200 a year. Raising more questions: at the same time, Miller had just purchased a home in Anchorage and begun working as an attorney for a well-known firm for $70,000 a year, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

The Miller camp explains that he technically qualified for the low income license because he'd most recently been a law student on scholarship at Yale, and he and his wife survived on loans. To qualify for a low-income license, residents must live in Alaska for over a year. He claims his wife spent 1994 in their Alaska home while he finished up school...but he acknowledges that they were able to afford the house by selling off property he owned in the midwest.

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