Quote of the Day: Entitlements

— By Kevin Drum

| Fri Nov. 5, 2010 11:31 AM PDT

From Eric Cantor (R–Virginia), in a letter to his fellow Republicans:

A difficult conversation indeed

Nov 5th 2010, 17:25 by M.S.

IN A letter he sent to Republican colleagues seeking their support for his bid as majority leader, Eric Cantor writes that Congress is going to have to start figuring out how to curb entitlement spending.

Getting our long-term deficit under control will require that we address major entitlement reform.  It is a conversation that we must have, but one that is easier said than done. President Obama, congressional Democrats, and their liberal allies have made it abundantly clear that they will attack anyone who puts forward a plan that even tries to begin a conversation about the tough choices that are needed.

Never let it be said that Eric Cantor lacks gumption. The Republican campaign that ended Tuesday fielded a blizzard of advertisements attacking Democrats for cutting Medicare spending by $500 billion over a decade. In Pennsylvania, Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie's group Crossroads GPS ran attack ads against Democratic Senate candidate Joe Sestaksaying "Sestak voted to gut Medicare—a $500 billion cut." Another Crossroads GPS ad:

California seniors are worried. Barbara Boxer voted to cut spending on Medicare benefits by $500 billion, cuts so costly to hospitals and nursing homes that they could stop taking Medicare altogether. Boxer's cuts would sharply reduce benefits for some and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others, and millions of Americans won't be able to keep the plan or doctor they already have. Check the facts and take action. Call Boxer. Stop the Medicare cuts.

The 60 Plus Group, an organisation funded by...somebody, nobody can figure out who, but whose PR officer is a former National Republican Congressional Committee staffer, ran attack ads against Democratic representative Paul Kanjorski noting that he and other Democrats "cut $500 billion from Medicare". Another 60 Plus Group ad attacks Tim Bishop, a Democratic representative from Pennsylvania, for cutting $500 billion from Medicare, then turns wistful and elegiac: "We may never know why Bishop supported Pelosi over our seniors." Why'd you do it, Tim? Why???

John Boehner, the presumptive new speaker of the House, told the American Enterprise Institute in September that one of his top priorities was to "repeal the $550 billion worth of Medicare cuts; and let’s see how many votes that bill gets in the House and Senate." Mr Cantor himself has spent the past year bashing Democrats for proposing Medicare cuts. Here's the opening line of Mr Cantor's December 18th op-ed in the Washington Times:

This holiday season, the Democrats are making a list and checking it twice: trillions in new spending, $500 billion in new taxes, $500 billion in Medicare cuts...

I would be remiss if I failed to note, along with the New York Times, that the cuts to Medicare we're talking about here are in fact cuts to how much the government will reimburse for relatively expensive, private Medicare Advantage plans. If you have plain-vanilla government Medicare, as 75% of beneficiaries do, this doesn't affect you. These are the easiest entitlement cuts one could imagine making: cuts to government subsidies for private businesses, mainly serving the well-off.

Or maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe it's easier for politicians to cut the social safety net for poor people than it is to cut subsidies to private businesses that serve the well-off. Poor people don't vote much, let alone fund 501(c)(4)s that run political attack ads. In any case, actions speak louder than words. Mr Cantor's party just won an election with a barrage of attacks on anyone who tried to start a tough conversation on the choices that are needed in entitlement reform, and I find it unlikely that this will lead to a better atmosphere for discussing such choices going forward. A little side box in Mr Cantor's letter contains the following note:

Fast Fact: Over two-thirds of Republican voters believe the budget can be balanced without reducing spending on Social Security or Medicare.

What could have given them that idea?