I'm just asking.
This time, we have to swallow trillions of dollars in cuts to domestic programs, including Medicare. I know, I know, benefits aren't supposed to be touched. But if payments to doctors are cut, something has to give. Paying doctors less will not increase the number willing to take Medicare patients. Paying less will not improve the quality of their care.
People who rely on Medicare will pay for deficit reduction. People with private jets will not.
And what's next?
The next time the Republicans have an opportunity to take an American hostage, what's next? Will we have to give up the Lilly Ledbetter Act? Swallow the reinstatement of Don't Ask Don't Tell? Man up for the repeal of the Civil Rights Act of 1965? Child labor laws? Social Security?
I'm just asking.
There are plenty of Tea Partiers who'd like to see unions abolished. Who'd like to ban not only abortions, but contraception, as well. Who'd happily require schools to teach all our kids about science from a church-approved textbook. They may not have a lot of popular support, but you know what? Cutting Medicare didn't have a lot of support either, and that didn't stop them. And having gotten a taste of what hostage-taking can get them, does anyone on the face of this Earth think they'll say "Well, we don't want anything more?" That they'll say "We're satisfied now, that's enough?"
Default would have been painful. Hugely painful. But the pain would have been shared with the powerful, who'd have an incentive to stop it now, or at the very least make sure that the people who brought us to default never got another dime of funding. But as long as the pain falls only on the weak, there is no such incentive. As long as it's grandma's healthcare that gets cut and not the depreciation allowance for private jets, the Tea Partiers can keep their unlimited corporate cash.
So what's next?
I'm just asking.