Leading themselves to slaughter

Last night, the Senate voted on the notorious Republican budget created
by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), essentially
cementing the Medicare issue into the foundation of the 2012 elections.

The entire episode, from the “Pledge to America” last fall to the House
vote passing the budget earlier this year to the Senate rejection of it,
has been a lesson in message discipline for both sides. For the
Democrats, on the defensive for two years and following a disastrous
midterm election that was a referendum on them, this budget has given
them the upper hand and higher ground with seniors and other important
constituencies. For the Republicans, who decimated Democrats for two
years with their out-of-control spending message and misleading attacks
on “ObamaCare,” the budget has destroyed their message discipline and
given away their momentum and any discernible advantage.

Moderate senators are suffering most. Look at poor Scott Brown of Massachusetts. He’s so proud of having been the vote to block the Democrats’ agenda that he used to sign his official photograph with “Scott Brown, #41!” (If you don’t believe me, check out his portrait at Legal Sea Foods in downtown D.C.) Even as recently as last week, Brown was a proud supporter of the Republican budget, declaring in front of a business group in Massachusetts, “I will vote for it!” Chalk it up to a momentary lapse in remembering his public persona as a moderate or political tone-deafness, but Brown was clear — that is, until his handlers told him he made a grave mistake. It took him 10 days of explaining to backtrack on his declarative statement, only to issue another one: “I will vote against this budget.”

Brown’s dilemma is real and dangerous, even if self-inflicted. He and other Senate moderates know the Republican budget is exceedingly unpopular. Most voters and seniors especially see it as grossly unfair because it stalwartly protects taxpayer subsidies to huge corporations like Exxon-Mobil while gutting and ending Medicare as we know it, block-granting Medicaid, decimating the EPA and clean air and water programs and cutting funding for education and health. Just this Tuesday, a special election in a conservative, reliably Republican House district in New York was won by the Democrat — and it seems that election swung on the Medicare issue.

And there’s no doubt voters should be scared. This budget ends Medicare as we know it for everyone born in 1957 and after, forcing them into private plans run by insurance companies. It doubles costs for seniors — the typical 65-year-old will pay $6,400 for insurance — twice as much as he or she would in traditional Medicare. The budget makes drastic cuts and continues to reduce federal support for the program over time, meaning more costs passed along to beneficiaries. And the budget repeals the Affordable Care Act and the prescription drug costs savings it provides, passing those costs on to seniors, who will pay $2.2 billion more for medicine next year alone.

Paul Ryan claims that he’s confident “the truth will get out” about his budget proposal. His problem is that the truth is already out. For Republicans, this is a hard sell to the American people, and so far they’ve lost the messaging war. Democrats now have a potent political message they can run on.

David Di Martino is a Democratic communications consultant in Washington.