Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is putting forward a very daring proposal for how to fix Social Security and Medicare, Think Progress reports: Get rid of them.
Bachmann spoke this past weekend at the right-wing Constitutional Coalition in St. Louis, Missouri, and put forth her plan. “So, what you have to do, is keep faith with the people that are already in the system, that don’t have any other options, we have to keep faith with them. But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off,” said Bachmann. “And wean everybody off because we have to take those unfunded net liabilities off our bank sheet, we can’t do it. So we just have to be straight with people. So basically, whoever our nominee is, is going to have to have a Glenn Beck chalkboard and explain to everybody this is the way it is.”
It certainly is interesting to see a Republican not talk in any euphemistic terms about personal accounts, or about saving the system, etc., but to openly admit that the goal is to no longer provide the social benefits themselves, and to transition away from them.
Currently, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has presented an alternative budget roadmap that would privatize Social Security and Medicare, replacing the latter with private vouchers. So far, nine Republicans including Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), Rep. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) have signed on to co-sponsor Ryan’s budget roadmap. Bachmann is not a co-sponsor of the Ryan plan — she in fact goes much further, by apparently wanting to abolish the program entirely.
It will be a very good question, to see just how many other Republicans are willing to talk like this during the mid-terms — and also how actively the Democrats will use Bachmann’s plan as a political tool against the GOP.
