Liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote on Friday that Republicans are a bunch of hypocrites because they criticized the $500 billion in Medicare cuts (it’s actually $800 billion over 10 years) in the Democrats’ health care legislation, but Republican Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has proposed a long-term budget “Roadmap” that would, as Krugman contends, “dismantle the whole [Medicare] program.” (Apparently Krugman didn’t have enough room in his column to point out that Democrats might be hypocrites for denouncing Medicare cuts under Clinton, then proposing Medicare cuts in Obamacare, then denouncing Paul Ryan’s reform as “abolishing” Medicare–while simultaneously pushing to pass Obamacare’s Medicare cuts through reconciliation. But I digress.)
Some conservative commentators have joined Krugman in criticizing Republicans for resorting to supposedly cynical and hypocritical ‘Mediscare’ tactics to defeat Obamacare. But Paul Ryan says that he doesn’t think Republicans have been hypocritical, because there are very big differences between his Medicare reform plan and Obamacare’s Medicare cuts. For starters:
