Today I’m announcing a new hashtag: #33seniors. It comes from President Obama’s budget/deficit speech yesterday:
[The Republicans have] a vision that says even though America can’t afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can’t afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy. Think about it. In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90% of all working Americans actually declined. The top 1% saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. And that’s who needs to pay less taxes? They want to give people like me a two hundred thousand dollar tax cut that’s paid for by asking thirty three seniors to each pay six thousand dollars more in health costs? That’s not right, and it’s not going to happen as long as I’m President.
It’s brilliant framing. Simple, understandable, and, so far as I am concerned, indefensible by the Republicans whose plan to reduce the deficit and health costs is a sham. As Rachel Maddow put so well last night, they don’t want to reduce costs, they simply want to shift them to politically powerless groups: the poor, the disabled, and the elderly.
So whenever you are tweeting about the ridiculous Ryan budget or about some other heartless, greedy Republican’s plan to pay for tax breaks for the top 1% wealthiest Americans onto those who can least afford it and who have seen their incomes DROP over the past few years rather than rise by an average of a quarter million dollars a year, use the hashtag new #33seniors.
I want Republicans to look seniors in the eye for the next two years and tell them they have to pay $6,000 a year in extra healthcare costs so that one millionaire can get his or her $200,000 tax cut.
Update: The hashtag is taking off! Here’s my latest tweet:
If Ryan’s #GOP budget passes will millionaires get to pick the #33seniors who will pay for their tax cut? Hide, grandma, hide! #OFA #Dems
I’m just sayin’…
