Scott Walker's Sneak Attack On Senior Citizens

In 2002, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle created Senior Care, a state run program that provides medication coverage for seniors. The program is very popular due to its user-friendly structure and much lower costs. Seniors enrolled in the program pay a $30 annual enrollment fee and a small copay for the medication - $5 for generics and $15 for brand name drugs. Better yet, Senior Care does not have the gap in coverage that most Medicare Part D plans do.

In 2011, Scott Walker tried to eliminate the program. This caused such an uproar among seniors that even Walker's Republican allies in the state legislature shot down Walker's plan to kill the program.

Last week, when Walker presented his budget, he made no mention of Senior Care, but lo and behold, he did include a massive cut to the program and wants to force seniors unto the more expensive programs offered by private insurance companies:

Democrats Wednesday blasted Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to push eligible recipients of the state's popular SeniorCare prescription drug plan into alternate federal coverage.

It wasn't immediately clear Wednesday how many of the 85,000 SeniorCare members across Wisconsin would have to start getting their prescriptions filled through the potentially more expensive federal Medicare Part D benefit.

[...]

The state would save $15 million from the change over the next two years, but the full impact of the cut would be nearly $100 million, since to provide its services SeniorCare also draws on drug company discounts and rebates — givebacks that they provide in the Medicare program — as well as fees and co-payments from patients.

While Walker is trying to spin it as no loss for Wisconsin seniors - he claims that it's just making the feds pay for it - the damage would be all too real for the elderly:

"They talk about going from steak to hamburger, but at this age most of us are already at hamburger and we're looking at going without," said 73-year-old Judith Joslin-Crary.

For Joslin-Crary and her husband Richard Crary, 86, of Beloit, losing funding from SeniorCare could mean making significant cuts or dialing back on doses of their prescriptions to manage.

One month's coverage through a private insurance company often costs more than the annual feel for Senior Care.

At least this shows that Walker isn't an ageist. He's willing to screw over anyone, no matter what stage of life they are in.

Lyin' Ryan Loses The Senior Citizens' Vote

On Friday afternoon, Lyin' Ryan was out a-lying to some members of the AARP in New Orleans, trying to sell them the usual crap about how Romneycare wouldn't hurt them, which is, of course, utter nonsense. Romneycare would nail senior citizens for thousands of dollars each year, forcing many to chose between medicine or having a home.

The seniors weren't buying any of it, and per Think Progress, were openly calling Ryan a "liar" and told him to "go home."

Think Progress also provided us with this video showing exactly the way Lyin' Ryan's lies went over:



And that was before Ryan could even tell them how he swam out to the Bahamas just before the speech.

Perhaps the best commentary on Lyin' Ryan's flop is the person who will be taking his congressional seat after the election, Rob Zerban, who issued this release after the news came out:

“Paul Ryan’s speech to the AARP yesterday shows seniors aren't buying into Ryan's snake oil salesman routine. Even after countless independent news organizations debunked Ryan’s lie about President Obama’s Medicare record, Ryan repeated the same outrageous claims simply to scare voters and cover up his indefensible budget plan. But the facts are simple: Paul Ryan would end Medicare as we know it and force seniors to pay an extra $6,500 per year out of their own pockets—while President Obama has consistently protected it. Voters know Ryan is trying to balance the budget on the backs of our seniors, and that’s why he was repeatedly booed yesterday.”

Is it any wonder why Ryan is afraid to show his face back in his district and try to debate Zerban. The way Zerban would take Ryan to task would make Ryan think the senior citizens were warm and weldoming.

That is why Ryan is using the lucre he has gotten from his multimillionaire buddies to try to buy the election. Which is why we need to help Zerban out. Learn how at his website.

THAT'S Their Selling Point?!

For the first time since the announcement that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are now a couple, they spent time apart on Monday.

Romney went to Florida by himself to try to convince the seniors there that the Romney/Ryan plan would not be putting them on a diet of Fancy Feast. (This is true by the way. Their plan wouldn't allow seniors to buy any name brand cat food. Strictly generic cat food for them, if they're lucky...)

Team Romney already knew that this would be a hard sell for them, as evidenced in an interview they did for "60 Minutes." They're new spiel isn't really going to be very helpful to them:

My mom is a Medicare senior in Florida. Our point is we need to preserve their benefits, because government made promises to them that they've organized their retirements around. In order to make sure we can do that, you must reform it for those of us who are younger. And we think these reforms are good reforms.

In other words, what Romney and Ryan are trying to tell the senior citizens is this:

"Don't worry, we're not putting the hit on you. We're going after your children's and grandchildren's money instead!"

Now, that might work for the 'Screw you - I got mine!' crowd which makes up the core of the Teapublican Party, but all the parents I know get pretty damn protective of their children and grandchildren, regardless whether they are adults or still are miners. I can't imagine that many of them would allow someone would try to harm their kids in any way.

But just as mind boggling, if not more so, is the hypocrisy that drips from them as they point fingers and accuse Democrats of trying to spend so much that our children and grandchildren are going to foot the bill for it. Even if this was true, which it's not, it's better to just go and steal the money from them instead.

I can't wait to see their argument about how the corporations are so much better at telling us how to spend our money than we are and are the answers to all our problems.

Grandma Didn't Need Her House Anyway

Remember how Scott Walker said that he balanced the budget without raising taxes?  Well, he didn't and he did.

We already know that the budget isn't balanced, by Walker's own admission.

And we already know that he raised taxes, especially among the poorest of the poor.

Now we know he is really sticking it to Grandma:

Last year, however, Gov. Scott Walker and the Legislature reversed that decision, freezing the credit at its current level. That move was projected to save the state $14 million over the next two years.

As a result, a senior living on Social Security will now see their tax credit drop by $209, or 28 percent, over the next five years, according to an analysis by the Wisconsin Budget Project, an initiative of the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families. The full report is available here.

Other seniors will lose the tax credit altogether, the group warns, because their Social Security income will increase while the level for the Homestead Credit eligibility stays frozen. That could push many recipients out of the program entirely.

"This is money that will come out of seniors' pockets," said Budget Project research analyst Tamarine Cornelius in a statement. "The effect will be relatively small at first but will continue to snowball."

The Budget Project estimates the Homestead Credit by 2016 will cover only 16 percent of a Wisconsin senior's property taxes. That's down from 25 percent in 2011.
Twenty years ago, the Homestead Credit would have covered nearly 60 percent of that same person's property tax bill, the report says.

Nothing says "I love seniors!" like raising their taxes and cutting their SeniorCare.

I think that kind of cements the notion that Walker's not going to Florida to lure the retirees back after all. Or maybe this is just the way he intended to get them to "invest" their money in Wisconsin businesses, since that's who Walker is giving Grandma's medicine money to.

It also shows how dumb Walker really is. In the face of an inevitable recall, he will now have to face a very powerful voting bloc of pissed off seniors. All of his jetting around the country, kissing up to the big time donors won't help save his worthless political hide.

Money doesn't vote.

But Grandma does.

Respect Your Elders!

On the first day of the recall, even as Scott Walker's neighbors were hosting a signature gathering rally, I stopped by my father's home on the way home from work. He made comment of the rally, which he saw on the news, pointing out that you know that Walker has to be a real asshole to have his neighbors publicly want him out of office like that.  He predicted that their next block party could be real interesting.

Even though my dad is ultra-conservative (no, we don''t discuss politics much), I didn't expect this from him.  I asked him if he would sign a petition if I got one to him.  He said that he most certainly would. He said that "A conservative tyrant is no better than a liberal one."

Now, to be perfectly honest, I wasn't really planning on circulating any petitions. But when my dad said he'd sign, I dashed off to get copies of the petitions and a couple of clipboards and dashed back.  I don't think I shall ever forget the moment when he signed both of the petitions.

Lately, I've also been noticing a lot of comments on Twitter and Facebook echoing people having similar experiences with their parents and grandparents.

This should not really surprise anyone, even though it does.

Walker has been waging a war on the elderly as much as anyone else since taking office.

One of his first political appointees was Dennis Smith, whose claim to Wisconsin fame was trying to kill the very popular SeniorCare while working as the Medicaid head honcho under George Walker Bush.  Walker has also already cut SeniorCare in order to remedy his phony budget crisis which he claimed to have gotten from Jim Doyle, even though no crisis ever existed until he started giving away tax money to campaign donors.

Walker also tried to force our elders off of SeniorCare and into the much more expensive Medicare Part D, which Bush created as a gift to Big Insurance.  Without doubt, Walker was probably hoping to tap into some of those big-time donors by doing this.

While Walker was stopped from finishing this particular attack on the elderly, he still has yet to apply for a waiver from the federal government to have this very popular and wildly successful program extended as it has been so many times before.

But SeniorCare is not the only avenue of attack by Walker on our seniors.  He has raised taxes on many of them by gutting the Homestead Tax Credit, which many elderly people take advantage of.  And they are also subject to the more than $111 million in higher fees.

And as if this wasn't enough, Walker has installed a poll tax, which has affected and angered many seniors:

"I don't think it's an isolated situation," said Andrea Kaminski, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, which is suing the state over the law. "We're hearing about cases from all around the state. Often they are older people who have been voting (their whole lives). All of a sudden they're not going to be able to vote, and that's really terrible."

A 2005 study by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Employment and Training Institute found an estimated 177,399 Wisconsin residents 65 and older do not have a driver's license or state photo ID -- 23 percent of that population. The study estimated that another 98,247 residents ages 35 through 64 lack IDs. Disparities were especially pronounced among racial minorities.

State Rep. Donna Seidel, D-Wausau, whose office has worked with Frank, said she has been visiting senior centers and assisted living facilities to discuss the impact of the law -- and has found many seniors are angry about what they find to be confusing changes.

"These people are proud of their history of voting," Seidel said. "The overwhelming reaction has been that (the new requirements) are totally unnecessary."

Rather a comprehensive, multi-prong attack on our elderly, isn't it?

But I have a feeling these assaults aren't the primary motivating factor for the elderly to line up with hundreds of thousands of other Wisconsinites to say that Walker has to go.

You see, even if they are being put upon in so many sundry and amoral ways, that might not be enough to motivate a lot of people. But Walker did the one thing that would motivate almost anyone.

He attacked their families.

The teachers, social workers, law enforcement officers, firefighters, highway workers, foresters, correction officers, and anyone else who worked in the public sector have either been laid off or have had their pay cut by thousands of dollars. And all of these people are someone's daughter, son, grandchild, nephew or niece. Likewise, when Walker attacked the schools, the ones being hurt the most were the children, who are the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren of our elderly.

And if there is one truth about people, it is that there is no force in nature as fierce as a parent protecting their own.

And by the way, it works the other way around. Most of us will not abide attacks on our parents and grandparents either.

It's no wonder the signatures are coming in one every three and a half seconds.

Walker Comes Out Whiffing

On the eve of his recall, Scott Walker comes out swinging.  And ends up whiffing enough to cause a steady breeze.

Courtesy of TPM, we see that Walker came put an ad up during Monday Night Football:



The woman in the video is Karin Rajnicek of the Waukesha School Board. In the video, she says this (emphasis mine):

“We were worried when the state budget was gonna mean less money for our school district. And we have 25 schools,” says Rajnicek. “But Governor Walker — he gave us options that reduced our biggest costs, so that we could put more money back into our classrooms.”

Maybe she should have been more worried, because according to the Waukesha School District website, they must have lost five schools (again, emphasis mine):

The School District of Waukesha is located fifteen miles west of Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the rolling hills of Waukesha County. With over 12,000 pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students served in our 20 schools, we are the seventh largest school district in the State of Wisconsin. Our schools include three comprehensive high schools, three middle schools, and 14 elementary schools. In addition, we serve students in six charter schools: Waukesha STEM Academy which has two campuses - Randall for Grades K-5 and Saratoga for Grades 6 and 7, Harvey Philip Alternative Charter School, Charter Recovery School, Waukesha Academy of Health Professions, Waukesha Engineering Preparatory Academy, and iQ Academy Wisconsin.

Or if you count the charter schools, she is short one. (Then again, does anyone really consider charter schools to be real schools?) Either way, it's rather scary that she is in charge of educating children when her math skills are as poor as Walker's. Maybe that's why she thinks that his slashing funding to her district was a good thing.

But that's just the beginning of the gaffes, folks.

Walker then comes on screen as says this:

“I’m committed to working together, to create more jobs, to improve our schools, and to protect our seniors. You know, Wisconsin’s best days are yet to come. It won’t happen overnight, but we are on our way.”

By creating jobs, he means, of course, chasing them out of the state by the hundreds.

And the DPI, in their annual survey, show that by improving schools, he means making sure the kids get less and less of education with less teachers, less schools and less programs.

And Walker feels that the best way to protect seniors is to cut their health care and deny them Family Care services.  And if the senior somehow manages to keep their health care coverage and/or get into Family Care, he'll make sure they don't make it to their medical appointments.

Can you believe he spent $300,000 of the Koch Brothers' money on this?  If this is the best he can do, this will be a cakewalk.

But Walker was correct on one thing.

Wisconsin's best days are yet to come.  And no, they will not happen overnight.  It will take 60 days just to get the recall signatures.

And yes, we are on our way...to recall this corrupt, inept bully and reclaim Wisconsin!

Paul Ryan Doesn't Want To Kill Grandma

He would rather just let her die when he cuts off her medications:

Permanently defunding the healthcare reform law could lead to the end of Medicare coverage for prescription drugs, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Although the Medicare drug benefit predates healthcare reform, the new law made changes to the program — most notably eliminating the so-called “doughnut hole,” in which seniors must pay for their drugs out of pocket.

If the new healthcare law is defunded, the changes to the prescription drug program could not be implemented and Medicare would be unable to offer the benefit, CBO said.

A real champion of the people, that Ryan. No wonder he got booed out of most of his town hall meetings. Anyone smarter than a radio talk show host or a RWNJ blogger sees right through him.