Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, released an open letter to President Obama criticizing Obama’s deficit reduction plan which, while levying a new millionaire tax, would also raise Medicare costs and fees for military veterans.
Paul, himself a former surgeon in the U.S. Air Force, wrote that he “was deeply concerned to learn that our military retirees are now facing benefit cuts under your proposed $1.5 trillion dollar tax hike.” Paul reiterated a call for cuts in “unwise and unconstitutional spending,” but maintained that “failing to meet the promises we have made to our troops would be unjust and immoral.”
The Associated Press reports details on the various fees included in the deficit reduction package, including those that Paul is attacking:
Paul’s argument by reference to “promises” should resonate with President Obama, who used similar language in April when characterizing the plan, put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to retructure entitlement spending, as saying “America can’t afford to keep the promise we’ve made to care for our seniors.”
Obama acknowledged in that April speech the need “to further reduce health care spending in our budget,” but attacked Republicans plans as “lowering] the government’s health care bills by asking seniors and poor families to pay them instead.”
In Obama’s latest deficit reduction plan, he proposes “modest adjustments” to Medicare and Medicaid that won’t fundamentally alter the trajectory of government debt. Failing that, the President appears willing to lower “the government’s health care bills by asking” military veterans “to pay them instead.”
