Mike Luckovich for January 10, 2023

In the 2022 midterm campaigns, Republicans made a lot of noise about addressing crime (caused by easy access to unlimited guns and ammo), inflation (caused by conservative refusal to corporate economic bullies engaged in price gouging), economic issues (caused when working people do not have enough income from good-paying jobs to stimulate domestic consumer demand) and the border crisis (caused by Trump destroying the proactive policies that Clinton, Dubya Bush and Obama had been put in place and then lying to the most economically desperate immigrants and inviting them here with untrue promises that Democrats would allow “open borders” when the opposite was true).

All that talk about issues people really care about was just bait-and-switch BS to trick gullible suckers into voting for them. They gave lip service to those issues, but never actually offered any specific solutions or proposals.

After losing several governorships, a senate seat and several state legislatures flipped from red to blue as their predicted “Big Red Wave” defied historical odds and almost totally fizzled, and all they got to show for their extremist rhetoric was a tiny sliver of a majority in the House of Representatives instead of the 40 to 60 seat gain they had predicted, they are not even going to try to address any issues of crime, inflation, the economy or their border crisis.

Instead, they are going to wage war against Social Security, Medicare and anything that actually helps middle-class working people or those in time of need.

The group to join and donate to is the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, NCPSSM. Check them out.

That pauper’s graveyard is costing America’s oligarchs way too much in tax refunds

They can certainly talk about it a lot but they don’t have the horsepower now to make it happen. This would just be another nail in the GOP’s coffin. Let them try.

I predicted this over 10 years ago, the repubs are fixen to give the rich and famous another tax break! In order too keep those Bribe checks rolling in!

The MAGA crowd will loss their food stamps and Medicaid.

The GOP have ALWAYS opposed Social Security and Medicare.

Accurate. Now I’m waiting to see the RW commenters change the subject.

And a lot of you old folks voted for ‘em!

The Reich has been running on cutting Social Security and Medicare for decades and the Dems have barely stopped them…an yet the +60 crowd who depend on SS and MC KEEP voting for them!!

Count on it…

Is there anything new that makes perennial ridiculous claim timely? Or did he have nothing tocover? Perish the thought he might pen a cartoon about Biden having classified documents. With many of the other AJC staff ‘retiring’ at the prospect of the death of the daily print edition, I wonder if he had to take a pay cut.

I wish the seniors were heavily armed.

What are all those protesters going to do when they are too old to work? Corporate pension plans are a joke except for the top executives. Healthcare will cost far more than anyone can afford. The idea that church’s will take care of you is the dumbest idea anyone ever came up with. They have cut taxes for the rich for years and nobody’s getting any richer than they are. I can’t wait for the next stupid idea the Republicons come up with.

Well, after all, all those old people no longer contribute to society and have become merely a drain on scarce resources such as health care, food, fuel and the like. Once they become no longer useful, there’s no use for them. Perhaps euthanasia at 65 really isn’t such a bad idea after all. Not for the wealthy elderly, of course. There’s always exceptions. /S

Makes sense.. The COVID anti mask.. anti vaccination campaign did not kill off enough old folk so this is plan B. And, as only democrats need medicare and social assistance.. this is a double win.

They will subpoena, investigate and harass AND they may become a totally broken limb in the legislative branch. The GQP will try to cut discretionary spending (SS & Medicare etc) in order to balance the budget, while leaving the highest income tax rates LOW and strangling the IRS. If they are able to pass a bill, the likelihood that the Senate AND POTUS will sign on is very low, expecting a very small number where all agree.2024 might result in another spanking of the GQP, as the independents and moderate republicans try to send decent, law loving, coalition building, get the job done candidates to Washington. Hoping.

You should stop voting for those people.

I, a senior citizen, along with many others will not sit by quietly if/when they come after medicare and SS. NO! We came of age in the late 60s, marched through the 70s, 80s, and 90s for what we believed in, and although a little slower, we will fight the people who continue to stuff money in their pockets then go to their very nice homes. Excuse me, but we are not the quiet, accommodating old folks they seem to expect. En garde!

Absolutely true. Unfortunately, too many Democrats seem to have the same goal, at least for Medicare, which they seek to “privatize” by surreptitiously expanding the existing privatization.

“Inequality is an inevitable product of capitalist activity,” is another increasingly common refrain, as growing income inequality is one of the key national issues of our day. When we read about billionaires spending over a billion dollars on a superyacht or $5 billion on a collection of rare cars, while over one in 10 American households experienced food insecurity in 2018, it’s not difficult to see why many become so upset about inequality.

Adam Smith was very aware of the inequality markets would produce. In Wealth of Nations, he wrote, “For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many.”

Republicans don’t want the IRS to look at rich people’s income. Republican tax cheats are turning the USA into Greece.

It’s very easy to make Social Security work. At the present time, Social Security taxes are only deducted on the first $220,600 of income. If people making more than that paid the same percentage as those below it, it would save the program for eternity. At the time SS began, the income inequality gap wasn’t such an issue. Now, with 1% of the people having as much wealth as the bottom 90%, all that would be necessary for the entire country to work for everyone is to have that 1% pay their fair share.https://ssworkswa.org/scrap-the-cap/

Scares me and I’m fearless.

It’s odd that most of the Jan.6th insurrectionists use and will use Social Security and/or Medicare. But, they vote, enmasse for Repubs that’ll try their best to curtail said programs.

Preachin to the choir, dude, preachin to the choir…

It amazed me that the Problem Solver’s Caucus and a handful of more moderate Republicans didn’t realize that they could bargain with the Democrats to side-line the crazies. If they nominated for speaker an experienced, accomplished person who has a history of working in a bipartisan way to LEGISLATE, it could bring Democrats to vote with them, perhaps in numbers enough to cancel any NO votes from the obstructionists and MAGA crowd. It would have been a way to ostracize the wackos, whose votes would not be necessary, and we’d have a functioning House of Representatives. Sigh…

The GOP wants Grandma and Grandpa to starve, get sick, and die.

The ads write themselves.

In looking at today’s toon, I was at first unsure whether it was a commentary on the gerontocracy that runs Congress or the recent January-6-wannabe assault on Brazil’s capital. Turns out it was neither. But the GOP’s assault on old people is fairly trivial compared to its massive attack on young people, the breathable air of the future they’ll inherit, their reproductive rights, public schooling, and lowest-common-denominator economy for ordinary people while the top 1% skim off 80% of the wealth they produce.

I remember a wise old man told me once that there’s three things you DON’T mess with. (1) His WIFE (2) His KIDS and (3) His MONEY! Republicans BEWARE!

Republicans Signal Cuts To Social Security, Medicare With New House Majority

House Republicans are making clear that they intend to seek cuts to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare with their new majority in the 118th Congress.

Their plans to target health care programs follow demands from a group of conservatives that helped elect House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) over the weekend. Those far-right lawmakers have sought across-the-board spending cuts in order to tackle the growing national debt.

They are — whether they admit it or not.

Yes, they are.

That’s the Democrats guys!