The granny-starver is working the pussy-grabberby digby
I don’t know if they’ll actually get this done but I would hope that Democrats would feature Ryan pushing it in their ads next fall:
Two days after the 2016 election, Paul Ryan gave a surprising interview on Fox News in which he declared the Republican agenda would include cuts to retirement programs. “If you’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare, you have to address those issues as well. …Medicare has got some serious issues because of Obamacare.” This has not happened. But Ryan has not given up the dream. “We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit,” Ryan told radio talk-show host Ross Kaminsky. “Frankly, it’s the health-care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the health-care entitlements — because that’s really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking.”
Trump, of course, promised during the campaign not to touch Medicare. “Many of these candidates want to cut it,” he said, but insisted he would bring so much growth cuts would not be necessary.
However, Ryan is trying to work on that. Ryan told Kaminsky he is lobbying Trump to support his plan. “Do you get the sense that you’re making a little bit of an impact on him when you talk to him about the importance of Medicare reform?” asked Kaminsky. “I do,” replied Ryan. “I think the president is understanding that choice and competition works everywhere in health care, especially in Medicare.”
Trump will do it if he wants to and it will have nothing to do with any normal calculation. It’s true that he promised not to but he promised a lot of things.