During a forum sponsored by The Des Moines Register and WHO-TV this Tuesday, six candidates for the GOP nomination demonstrated their utter ignorance of reality. For these six white, middle-aged, financially privileged men, everything wrong about America is what's right about their little protected world.
The candidates are competing in the June 8 Republican primary for the opportunity to face incumbent Democrat Leonard Boswell in November's general election.
The line-up:
Dave Funk- Aviation security consultant
Mark Rees- Retired architect
Brad Zaun- State senator and Realty company Vice president
Scott Batcher- Health care consultant
Jim Gibbons- Financial adviser
Pat Bertroche- Psychiatrist
At this point, Gibbons doesn't even live in the district. His claim to fame is that he was an Iowa State wrestler. He seems to be the front runner at this time.
He's some indications of the fantasy world that these knucklehead live in.
Funk
He contends that there is no constitutional authority at the federal level for a Social Security program, favoring initially a public-private partnership and then a system where future Americans would fund their own retirements and disability insurance. Sure, right- Give the money to Goldman Sachs to vanish in derivative deals. The money quote in the DM Register from Funk was
"Let's face it, if there's a business in the Yellow Pages that can do this, the government should not be doing it. It is really no simpler than that,"
Sure, why pay $1 for a government provided service when you can pay a private company $3 and get worse service, to boot?!
Rees
He sounded a little less crazy, so of course, he's got no chance. He thinks guidelines for participation in Social Security should be re-evaluated and held out the possibility of raising the age for eligibility and raising the cap on earnings taxed for Social Security, currently $106,800.
His descent into la la land was
"There are too many people in the program who have contributed very little, if anything, to Social Security."
So I guess we throw the disabled babies and stay at home mother/fathers off of Social Security, right? Oh, and he wants to give a chunk of SS to Wall Street, those staunch guardians of our investments (cough).
Zaun
His issue with Social Security is the people who manage it. What? With the usual detailed in-depth analysis of such a point usually given by GOP candidates..Oh, I slapped myself back into reality.... He has a problem with billionaires such as Omaha businessman Warren Buffett being eligible to draw Social Security. I guess he doesn't realize Ol Warren pays in the same amount as your average moderately successful dentist.
Batcher
His solution is to crack down on Medicare fraud, which he estimated at 10 percent of the program's costs. Hmmm, I guess those huge profits at Pharma and Pharmacy Benefit Managers are just fine. Oh, and in the classic fox watching the hen house GOP rationale "The way to eliminate Medicare fraud is to consult experts from health care companies who know how to get rid of it" he said. Those same health care companies who COMMIT the fraud..WTF?!
Gibbons
He also went down the happy la la trail of eliminating waste and fraud from government. And again, by letting those companies currently commuting the fraud to police themselves. ROFLMAO. He also noted that
"The way we drive down costs is the quick increase of supply of health care and also the increase of competition,"
Then he went into winger territory, comparing highly sophisticated and technically challenging provision of health care to corn and soybean commodity markets. Give him credit for being loyal to ISU logic (that's why we have the Medical/Dental/Pharmacy/Nursing/Physician Assistant...etc schools over at U of Iowa, Jim.)
Bertroche
Started out making sense by saying that the Medicare issue is complicated and can't be solved during a political debate. Then off he went to the ozone. First suggesting that Medicare eligibility be pushed to older ages, and then went on in a later discussion to claim that the recent health care bill DIDN'T have provisions to stop Pre-existing conditions from being a part of insurance. His logic there, which was followed by all the rest, in a stunning display of ignorance and Beckianism, was that it's only for kids now and that it won't go into effect for adults. Wha???
A physician, either totally IGNORANT, or a LIAR. Physician, heal thyself.
All in all, a typical basket of wing nuts, divorced from the reality of the majority of the voters in the district, parroting Limbaugh, Beck, and their corporate leash holders.
Absolutely pathetic.