51 GOP Senators Just Voted To Cut $1.5 Trillion from Medicare and Medicaid To Give Super-Rich and Corporations a Tax Cut

"51 Republican Senators just voted to cut Medicaid by $1 trillion and Medicare by $500 billion so that millionaires and corporations can get a tax cut.

Here, for the record, is the full roll call of the vote:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/10/19/51-gop-senators-just-voted-cut-15-trillion-medicare-and-medicaid-give-super-rich-and

Personally I'm surprised it took this long. Not that it matters when republicans do it, but this was passed with reconcilliation. I guess you can always count on the GOP to look out for one minority group in particular, the ultra rich.

@Serraph105: Nice spin on it.

Tax cuts are not just for the super rich, so let´s see what they come up with once they start to file the plan.

Hey, those ultra rich will create more jobs this way. :P

I didn't mean to trigger you, although that proves to be increasingly hard to avoid.

Trigger what? hopefully you expected more than a pat on the back from your fellow liberals.

Because if you just want to be confirmed in your narrow-mindedness i hear Facebook has groups for that.

Lol Collins and Murkowski both voted yay? For shame.

What's the problem? Don't worry if you lose out on the deal, more will trickle down to you any way.

I’m new to all this health insurance stuff going on, but regardless if you’re a democrat or republican, why did everyone want to have government mandated health care? If I can’t afford it hypothetically, why should I be forced to pay for it? That’s the part that really pisses me off. People lauded over the Obamacare back in 2012 and still today while the ones who said no to this or try to appeal it get shut down.

Am I missing something here? I get that there’s specifics and exceptions to everyone’s health care but didn’t this hurt a lot of businesses that were forced to provide coverage for their employees?

Right, if the people at the giant buffet table get more food added to it a few more scraps may fall off of it for me to subsist on.

So, undoubtedly Obamacare was bad for the bottom line for buisnesses. Arguably that's true for any company providing any sort of extra benefit though. Cost sharing on health insurance? Yeah that's going to cost the business money. 401K money matching? Same deal. Give an employee a raise? That costs the business as well. Of course there are incentives for a business to do this of course, it makes employees want to work there as well as stay there, an employee in good health is more likely to show up for work, etc.

To answer your other part, if you can't afford healthcare then you get yours subsidised which is paid for by people (including healthy people) being mandated to have it and that's why the mandate exists. Personally I think we should go to a universal healthcare system, but that wasn't doable back in 2009 so an increase in standards and using insurance companies is what we got. I wish we had a government funded option to compete with the insurance companies to bring costs down further, but that got thrown out as well.

It does seem a bit weird doesn't it? They weren't for removing subsidies that go towards people's healthcare, but they don't mind just straight up taking $1.5 trillion from healthcare programs. It makes me wonder what their motivation for saying no to the healthcare bill really was as it clearly wasn't the people it stood to hurt.

Any information on which taxes will be lowered or removed?

Their motivation is what ever they can take back and get re-elected

But don´t get fooled by the click bait headline from the TS.

"The tax plan calls for reducing tax rates on corporations from 35% to 20%, and consolidating individual tax rates to 35%, 25% and 12%, though the income brackets for those rates have yet to be set.

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has said once Congress finishes the budget, his panel will unveil the tax bill. “Once that budget is done, boom, we’ll bring it forward,” Brady said earlier this month.

The budget approved by the Senate Thursday follows earlier similar Republican blueprints. It slashes domestic spending, including steep cuts to Medicare and Medicaid"

While the plan does include some cuts to Medicare and Medicaid it´s not 1.5 trillion , that is simply a ultra far left websites smoke&Mirror tactic.

I'm not really sure. Looking at this NPR article it suggests that it will likely balloon the deficit the 1.5 trillion that was removed from medicade/medicare. It looks like we will be taking in 1.5 trillion less dollars in taxes (over 10 years) and simply not funding those programs. So basically that will be $150 billion dollars a year not taken in and instead go into the banks of whoever gets to take advantage of the tax breaks.

Yeah that article doesn't say much either. =/

@Serraph105: @horgen: It's the tax plan unveiled earlier. Estate tax removed, corporate taxes lowered, individual brackets lowered and consolidated, etc.

@Jacanuk: What is the amount of the cuts?

Ah. Well you get what you pay for.

Do you have a source to back up that claim? The NPR article I posted above does say that 1.5 trillion in taxes will be cut over a ten year period. Also the budgets for Medicare and Medicaid are among the most expensive items in the annual budget along with Social Security, Income Security, Non-national security, and National Defense.

Below is a picture that shows the annual budget. Now this is from 2014 so don't get too caught up, but the right hand collumn displays consistently the programs shown each year to cost the most. My question is this, if it's not medicade/medicare that 1.5 trillion is coming from which programs below are getting cut?

of course the zodiac killer and turtle man would vote yea

Let´s take what more normal media outlets say

"The measure is estimated to add $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years, and contains about $4 trillion in spending cuts." ABC/MSNBC/CNN" "The budget opens the door to expanding the federal deficit by $1.5 trillion over 10 years" Washout post.

That does not equal 1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and Medicare. The cuts to medicare/medicaid will be more along the lines of around 7 billion out of a budget of close to 800 billion. According to some sources.

But the plan is still being worked out so again we need to wait until the actual proposal is done.

My mother in law has early onset dementia and is in a nursing home that we wouldn't be able to afford without government assistance. Thanks scumbags! Maybe she can come live with some of these senators and they can change her crap filled depends all day while she tries to burn down the house.

Conservatives will probably say she should just get a job. Yeah let's have a person who has issues walking without assistance, has no idea what year it is, and doesn't even recognize her own daughter half the time get a job.

Why do we even pay taxes if we aren't going to do anything to take care of the most vulnerable people in society?

And these pieces of absolute human trash all have excellent healthcare that you and I pay for with our taxes.

Before you start to go on with the emotional line. You may want to check up on what it means.

Not to mention that the house has no impact as to your mom´s place , that is up to the state and if they cut funding, well go complain to your state legislative power.

$250K/yr joint household income is "super-rich" lol.

Shitty that it expands the deficit, but I hope it at least lowers the corporate tax rate to something more competitive with the rest of the West.

Ever had to care for someone with dementia? I had to do it for 3 years. The nursing home was a godsend. I got my life back. I was in hell. How about you stfu. Sociopathic pieces of crap like you and the Republicans who represent you are everything that's wrong with this country.

Well that will remove the R's from power. Voters don't like when their bottom line is reduced.

Have I mentioned how much the republican party sucks?

Look at all those fiscal hawks! Complained about deficit and debt under Obama and they just voted to fucking INCREASE it.

We will see.

But I honestly doubt it; I've rarely/hardly known the Republican party to save money, only to go "Here you go! Have some money". Usually when they save money, it's to squander it on themselves and/or their friends.

No...we won't see this money again, it is gone. A shame.

Already been predicted to do nothing for the middle class or the poor.....

@LJS9502_basic: If history is a guide, they'll only need to obfuscate the math and tell people it will increase growth.

Actually I do it 2-4 times a week for a short period of time each of those days. While it isn't difficult, it is annoying and nerve fraying and many times just a pain in the ass. My grandparents are OLD and while my grandmother has all her faculties, my grandfather doesn't. He has dementia. How severe? I'm not sure but in his case, he can act "silly" one moment and then a prick the next. He's not allowed to use the stove anymore for fear he'll forget (as he has done in the past) to turn it off causing a fire. He is not allowed to go up and down the steps because he will fall. 9 out of 10 times he is irrational. He's 95. He has to be on his way out one of these days. As bad as it may sound (which I don't think it does) it's just a matter of time.

Under this plan I would move from the 28 percent bracket to the 25 percent bracket, so good for me. However, the people at the bottom will get shafted.

@plageus900: I wouldn't be so sure. The devil is in the details. For example, they're floating the idea of limiting 401k deductions to 2400 a year.

The more we gut programs, the more people complain about incompetence about government, the more they continue to gut programs and then spend more money on privatized services for the same or less-than services that they could have received from the government...

Wait, what? Where did you hear that? The notion of limiting 401k contributions to that is fucking ludicrous seeing as it's usually the main vehicle for retirement funding in corporate america.

@HoolaHoopMan:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/theres-talk-of-capping-401k-contributions-at-2400-per-year-2017-10-20

http://www.businessinsider.com/retirement-saving-401k-changes-in-trump-tax-plan-2017-10

https://www.wsj.com/articles/talk-of-retirement-savings-cap-rattles-financial-industry-1508497200

Tax cuts have to be paid for some how, and 401ks don't help high income donors much.

The fact that Republicans have convinced so many people that they're looking out for the middle class is preposterous.

This is...so confusing. It's so cruel. What the hell. The 401k has been the vehicle for retirement growth for 30 years. How can they cap this at 2.4k? It's so ridiculous that I can't even have a straight face describing it. If this is a sign of fucking over the middle class I don't know what is.

Aaaaaaaaand were back to deficits don't matter. All the work the democrats did cutting the deficit from $1.2 trillion per annum to less than $500 billion was just erased by the self proclaimed party of fiscal responsibility. I wonder how they're going to blame this on Democrats... Again.

As usual, anyone who voted Republican is a complete moron.

It's simple, republicans are in it for the billionaires.

Politicians are in it for the Billionaires. Wealth inequality will not be addressed by either side until their hand is forced. Neither party is actually willing to displease the folk lining their pockets.

Which pretty much means it will never be addressed until the gap gets so big that it isn't sustainable anymore. But they don't care about that, they will all be dead then, it is the younger generation that gets fucked.

To be fair, the youth could participate in primary elections. If eight out of ten eligible individuals under the age of thirty five showed up for primary elections, we might actually have a socialist wing of the democratic party that is larger then one mostly irrelevant grandpa.

Why vote if neither party represent you?

Both parties will cater to their voters and donors. If neither of them are people under 35, neither party will cater to people under 35. Isn't that how it works, more or less?

The entire point of primaries is to see who the next candidate is going to represent. Right now old people dominate the rank and file, so while democratic rhetoric might lean left at times, their actual policies are almost always extremely conservative.

So you can botcher it like the DNC?

If by me you mean someone who can legally run for president but possesses a similarly liberal philosophy, then sure. Let government err on the side of poor folk for a few generations. The rich have enjoyed special consideration for literally the whole of human civilization. I don't think civilization will collapse if someone else gets a turn for the rest of my meager lifetime.

It's simple - With Republicans, the average income earner in America will NEVER get legislation that will help them; with Democrats, they will get some legislation that will help them, and that's usually legislation in the form of civil rights, labor, taxes, and healthcare. A vote for a Republican is a vote against the interests of more than 90% of the population.

All it takes is for Americans to get politically involved and this mess can be cleaned up. But most aren't interested and don't bother to vote. So I blame Americans more than politicians for this mess. Look how many people support politicians that actually are against their own interests. Seriously voting a party in power that cuts taxes for the wealthy 1% and cuts social programs for them? Madness.

Thank God someone mentioned the primary process here.

If you don't like the parties, get involved in the primary process. That's how parties are steered

@Serraph105: "It's simple, republicans are in it for the billionaires."

It's hard to come to any other conclusion, really.