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The Ryan Budget: Throwing Grandma from the Train


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Alan Grayson was back on national TV and radio on Tuesday, exposing the Ryan Budget. Here's what he said:

STEPHANIE MILLER: Good morning, former and future [Congressman].

ALAN GRAYSON: Good morning. I couldn't help but say to myself, "What Nonsense," when I was listening to your preview [about Republicans defending the Ryan Budget] there. It's getting to be painful [to see] how they twist and turn and try to rationalize what fundamentally is destroying the Medicare program. That's what we're talking about there.

STEPHANIE MILLER: Yes, but look at how blue [Paul Ryan's] eyes are.

ALAN GRAYSON: They are going to replace the actual care that you need: the doctors, the x-rays, the chemotherapy. They are going to replace that with a check that they know isn't enough to pay for all of that, in fact, [one that is] $6,500 short every year. It's not even close enough to pay for it. It's as if you went to McDonalds and ordered a hamburger, and instead of handing you a hamburger they handed you a piece of paper that had the word "hamburger" on it. That's the con job that they are trying to run on America right now.

CHRIS LAVOIE: Oh my God! You are absolutely right. That is a great analogy.

JIM WARD: Mmmm, this paper is delicious.

STEPHANIE MILLER: This isn't actually a hamburger. I can't eat it. You know what, former and future [Congressman], I'm so glad you said that. Listen to Romney yesterday:

[Romney Audio Clip]: There's only one president that I know of in history that robbed Medicare $716 billion to pay for a new risky program of his own that we call Obamacare. . . .

STEPHANIE MILLER: This is what they are going to keep trying to hammer and Jim you had said this about the amount of money they have to spend to go, "Oh no, no, no, we are the saviors of Medicare and it's the President [who is trying to destroy it]." Can you explain what the $700 billion is about?

ALAN GRAYSON: "Obamacare" did not reduce a single Medicare benefit for anybody.


ALAN GRAYSON: In fact, what [Obamacare] did was that it closed the donut hole, which means already that seniors pay $600 less each year for their prescription drugs. And by 2014, it will be $1,200 less for every senior who needs any prescription. Not a single benefit was cut. They found other ways to save in the program.


ALAN GRAYSON: And isn't that what the Republicans are always calling for? They are always calling for more efficiency, less waste, less fraud, less abuse. What [Romney] is describing is the fact that President Obama was able to get $700 billion of waste, fraud and abuse out of the program without changing a single benefit.

JIM WARD: That's why Romney is pretending not to know what a donut is. He's trying to avoid the donut hole. I get it now.

ALAN GRAYSON: Maybe he can get Gingrich to come in and explain what a donut is. He certainly knows what a donut is. Or Chris Christie.

STEPHANIE MILLER: Chris Christie. I was going to go there. We almost collided getting to the Chris Christie joke.

ALAN GRAYSON: How pleasant that would have been.

STEPHANIE MILLER: So obviously, you know, you've seen all the headlines this morning. Republicans in competitive races distance themselves from Romney's Medicare plan. So you're running in Florida. We obviously saw what happened in upstate New York. That was only one race. That is my home district as you know. A Democrat never wins that, and because of Paul Ryan, Kathy Hochul won that seat. What does this mean for people like you in Florida?

ALAN GRAYSON: Well in Florida you have three times the senior vote as the rest of the country does, and seniors are waking up and realizing that, it's true, the Republicans really do want to take your Social Security money, and hand it over to Wall Street. They really do want to take your Medicare away from you, and destroy that program. All of that is true, and now it's right in their faces. And, by the way, this exact same Ryan Plan, this exact same Ryan Budget, came up when I was in Congress, in the 111th Congress. The Democrats brought it up for a vote and hardly any Republicans voted for it.


ALAN GRAYSON: In fact, [Rep. John] Boehner went around and told every conceivable vulnerable Republican, "Don't vote for that. That's going to get you lost." And, in fact, now we're going to see it happen all over the country. I think, not just at the Presidential level, but at the Senate level, the House level. Every Republican is going to be tarred with that brush.

STEPHANIE MILLER: You know, I was going to say, Alan I don't know if I'm getting giddy and ahead of myself, but that's what I feel like. This is a game changer in a bad way for them. I mean were you surprised by this pick?

ALAN GRAYSON: It's important that we drive the point home. We can't have weak Democrats nattering, "Well, jeez, maybe Ryan isn't as good as Simpson-Bowles," or something like that. No, no, no. No. The Ryan Plan is going to take away your Social Security, your Medicare, your Medicaid. It's going to throw Grandma from the train.


ALAN GRAYSON: And that's what the Democrats have to say every day between now and November 6th.

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