Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV)
If you're brazen enough, and lie often enough with a straight enough face, you can get away with just about anything. If you're a Republican, anyway. It worked for them in 2010, when they lied about the "billions cut from Medicare" by the Affordable Care Act. They thought that lie will continue to work for them, as they
kept up the drumbeat earlier this year that it's really the Democrats who cut Medicare.
Now they're doubling down on rewriting that history, trying to pretend that almost every congressional Republican did not vote to end Medicare when they voted for the budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan. Oh, and Democrats are meanies for talking about it.
Republicans are accusing Democrats of using "scare tactics" to convince Americans the GOP wants an end to Medicare and Social Security.
In the party's weekly radio address, Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada says both parties should come together to fix those programs, overhaul the nation's tax code and pass pro-growth policies to right the economy.
"Let's stop the lies about who wants to end Medicare or eliminate Social Security and fix both programs now," Heller says. "If some in Washington would stop campaigning long enough to do their jobs, we could fix both and ensure their existence for generations to come."
One could see how Heller, in particular, would want to rewrite that history. He has the distinction of being the only member of Congress who voted for it twice, both in the House and Senate. When he took both those votes, he said he was "proud" to have done so. Now he just wants all his constituents to forget it, apparently.
No matter how they try to spin it, they voted to kill Medicare and they're still running from that vote. In addition to proving that he's a craven hypocrite, Heller just proved that Medicare remains an extremely potent issue for Democrats. A potent issue, that is, as long as Democrats fight to keep it, without benefits cuts.