Aug 14, 2012

Steve Daines Admits Support for Ending Medicare

This week Steve Daines admitted he would vote for Congressman Paul Ryan's radical budget that ends Medicare to fund more tax breaks for millionaires.  The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found that the Ryan plan would raise health care costs for seniors by $6,400 while the Tax Policy Center found it would cut taxes for people making over $1 million a year by $265,000.

"If Montana needed any more proof of how Steve Daines stands with millionaires over the middle class, he now admits he would have voted for Paul Ryan's radical budget that would end Medicare while protecting tax breaks for millionaires," said Stephen Carter of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.  "Steve Daines now has to defend the indefensible: Daines wants to hand millionaires a $265,000 tax break while sticking seniors with $6,400 more in health care costs."

BACKGROUND

Daines Would Vote for the Paul Ryan Budget to End Medicare.  "Daines says he would vote to repeal President Barack Obama's health-reform law, the Affordable Care Act, and that he would have voted for the so-called Ryan budget, the conservative budget blueprint from U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and endorsed by the GOP-controlled House in March." [Billings Gazette, 8/12/12]

House Republican Budgets Has the Wrong Priorities. The House Republican Budget authored by Congressman Paul Ryan would end Medicare’s guaranteed benefit, protect $40 billion in tax breaks for big oil, and provide people earning more than $1 million a year with an average tax cut of $265,000. Additionally, the Congressional Budget Office estimated it will increase health care costs by an extra $6,359 by 2022 for future Medicare beneficiaries, while the Center for American progress has claimed that it is likely that that a middle-class family with two kids making about $70,000 a year would pay about $1,150 more in income tax. [H Con. Res. 34, Vote #277, 4/15/11; H Con Res 112, Vote #151, 3/29/12; Center for American Progress, 3/20/12; Center for American Progress, 3/20/12; Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 3/27/12; Tax Policy Center, Table T12-0078 and T10-0132; Citizens for Tax Justice, 3/22/12; CBO, 4/5/11; CNN, 3/23/12]

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