Cutting benefits to seniors

Paul Krugman catches Representative Paul Ryan's 'cutting benefits to seniors' bogeyman in his SOTU response:

Let me also highlight another point from that passage: Ryan warns that if we don’t deal with our fiscal problems, we’ll have to raise taxes and cut benefits for seniors. So what can we do to reduce the deficit? Well, government spending is dominated by the big 5: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense, and interest payments; you can’t make a significant dent in the deficit without either raising taxes or cutting those big 5. Defense is untouchable, says the GOP; so that leaves the entitlement programs. And 2.7 of the three entitlement programs are benefits to seniors (70 percent of Medicaid spending goes on seniors).

So let’s see: to avoid cuts in benefits to seniors, we must … cut benefits to seniors.

Very serious people. Substance does not matter if you are a politician.

Smooth Criminal by Dueling Cellists

Fantastic. Just another illustration of MJ's brilliance. [h/t ABL]

How does a bill become law

Amidst all the gloating and the 'mission-accomplished' blathering in the House about the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, this video is quite educational. [h/t Kos]