EDITORIAL: Republicans need to get act straight on entitlement programs
True conservatism means principles, not partisanship. Republican leaders fail the test when it comes to the Medicare prescription drug plan passed under their watch in 2003. When Republican candidates for president were asked about repealing it during the CNN/Tea Party Express debate last week, all passed on the idea.
Answers involving the Medicare drug plan were revealing — and jarring. This popular entitlement program was approved by a Republican Congress without adequate funding. Medicare recipients pay for a fourth of program costs, but the rest comes from taxpayers and the general fund, also used to wage wars, maintain our freeways and provide disaster relief. Its $7.5 trillion “unfunded obligation” over the next 75 years will reportedly exceed even the $6.7 trillion gap in Social Security obligations.
Let’s be honest. You can’t be outraged over Obama- care on principle (which we are, by the way), then ignore the folly of creating a Medicare drug plan that simply isn’t funded. Do the Republicans balk because many of those who passed it remain in power? Is it because this was a Republican-created entitlement program rather than a Democratic-created entitlement program?
This inconsistency in conservatism reveals why voters are right to be ever-skeptical of the candidates, regardless of party labels. In this case, the Republican candidates for president are clearly pandering to the public, ignoring the fact this program is yet another huge expense that will cost our children and grandchildren mightily. They should at least be offering prescriptions on how to keep this program propped up, including means-testing.
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