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“But at the end of the day…we’ve got to have entitlement reform and that is why we keep pushing for our health care reform and that’s why we keep pushing for entitlement reform.” - Speaker Paul Ryan
This is no surprise to us. Speaker Ryan has been trying for years to cut earned benefit programs.
We have been keeping track of Congress’ actions on earned benefits and health care.
Click here to view our Congressional timeline.
But I feel from all the budgets that I’ve passed, normalizing entitlement reform, pushing the cause of entitlement reform and the house passing entitlement reform, I’m very proud of that fact. But yeah, of course more work needs to be done, and it really is entitlements. That’s where the work needs to be done, and I’m going to keep fighting for that.
Speaker Paul Ryan via Politico.
Related Reading:
Seniors Relieved as America’s Privatizer-In-Chief Heads for the Exits.
- House Speaker Paul Ryan’s retirement from Congress lifts a very dark cloud that has hung over older Americans for nearly two decades. During that time, Speaker Ryan has been the Privatizer-in-Chief on Capitol Hill – advocating to turn Medicare into a voucher program and to gamble retirees’ Social Security benefits on the whims of Wall Street.
With the scribbled ink on December’s GOP tax legislation barely dry, congressional Republicans are promising to target Americans’ earned benefits this year. House Speaker Paul Ryan told a Wisconsin radio interviewer, “We’re going to have to get back… at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit.” Ryan went on to make a number of dubious claims, all to justify future benefit cuts for working Americans, millions of whom already are struggling to make ends meet.
Of course, Ryan has been using this rationale for years. The difference now is that he and his party finally have the power realize their long-held dreams of gutting programs that Americans have paid into for their entire working lives. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is not the firewall against changes to Social Security and Medicare that he promised to be during the campaign.
In opposing these attempts to undermine Social Security and Medicare, it’s important for us to continue to correct a few of Ryan’s mendacious fairy tales about these programs:
Social Security and Medicare are the ‘major drivers’ of the debt
This is a canard budget hawks often use to attack earned benefits. The truth is that Social Security and Medicare Part A are self-funded through workers’ payroll contributions. They do not contribute a penny to the debt. However, one of the biggest drivers of the debt moving forward will be the Trump/GOP tax cut.
Read more from our op-ed here via Palm Beach Post.
Medicare advocates celebrated Ryan’s announcement, noting that he will leave Congress without accomplishing his lifelong goal of reforming Medicare.
“House Speaker Paul Ryan’s retirement from Congress lifts a very dark cloud that has hung over older Americans for nearly two decades,” Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare said in a statement.
“During that time, Speaker Ryan has been the Privatizer-in-Chief on Capitol Hill – advocating to turn Medicare into a voucher program and to gamble retirees’ Social Security benefits on the whims of Wall Street.”
via The Hill.
Related Reading:
Farewell to Paul Ryan and His Insidious
“Entitlement Reforms.”
- As America’s Privatizer-in-Chief, he spearheaded attempts to turn Medicare into a voucher program and to gamble retirees’ Social Security benefits on the whims of Wall Street.
- He passed legislation in the House to cut more than $1 trillion from Medicaid by imposing per capita caps and turning it into a block grant program.
Speaker Ryan spoke to Hugh Hewitt recently about his plans to target earned benefits this year.
We are keeping track of these comments here:
http://bit.ly/earnedbenefits
“Over the long term horizon, we’ve got to get this debt under control and the only way to do that is entitlement reform,” Ryan said in an interview on Fox Business. “That’s why we’re never going to give up on entitlement reform.”
via Washington Examiner.
Related Reading:
Speaker Ryan and his GOP colleagues continue to voice their support for earned benefits and health care cuts.
You can track their quotes by clicking here.

Paul Ryan already eyeballing social safety net cuts
Speaker Paul Ryan is already talking about cutting entitlements such as Medicare, even before Congress finishes passing a tax plan.
Watch the full segment here via MSNBC.
Related Reading:
After Passing Senate Tax Bill, GOP to Target Seniors’ Earned Benefits.
- But the biggest poison pill for the elderly in this legislation is the existential threat it poses to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
House Speaker Paul Ryan told a Wisconsin radio interviewer, “We’re going to have to get back… at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit.” Ryan went on to make a number of dubious claims, all to justify future benefit cuts for working Americans, millions of whom already are struggling to make ends meet.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Wednesday said House Republicans will aim to cut spending on Medicare, Medicaid and welfare programs next year as a way to trim the federal deficit.
“We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit,” Ryan said during an interview on Ross Kaminsky’s talk radio show.
Health-care entitlements such as Medicare and Medicaid “are the big drivers of debt,” Ryan said, “so we spend more time on the health-care entitlements, because that’s really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking.“
via The Hill.
Related Reading:
After Passing Senate Tax Bill, GOP to Target Seniors’ Earned Benefits.
- As if to confirm the warnings of seniors’ advocates, Republicans have signaled that their next targets after the tax bill are Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
- Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) admitted as much in an interview with Politico last week, declaring that spending cuts in earned benefits programs will be necessary to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and multinational corporations.
National Committee President, House Dems Decry GOP Tax Plan’s "Dire” Impact on Seniors.
- The tax bill will trigger an immediate $25 billion cut to Medicare unless Congress quickly waives the PAYGO provision of federal budget law.
- Both Medicare and Medicaid – which helps seniors afford long-term care – are targeted for deep cuts in the GOP budget plan.

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure becomes the first black woman to lead the agency that oversees #Medicare and #Medicaid. She is a major improvement over President Trump’s CMS administrator, who undermined Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/us/politics/chiquita-brooks-lasure-medicare-medicaid.html @CMSGov





