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April 02, 2014 02:03 PM UTC

DCCC Hits Coffman on New "Ryan Plan"

  • 18 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

The Hill reports today:

House Democratic leaders bashing Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) latest budget bill have at least one good thing to say about the sweeping plan: It could help them at the polls in November.

Democrats have been focused on a populist economic agenda that includes an increase in the minimum wage, an extension of emergency jobless benefits and a broad expansion of health insurance coverage included in the Affordable Care Act. 

They're hoping the Ryan plan — which slashes spending on food stamps, low-income education initiatives and Medicaid, among a long list of domestic programs — plays right into their messaging strategy.

It's generally accepted today that the budget proposals put forth by Rep. Paul Ryan since 2010 have harmed Republicans politically, especially in 2012 when Ryan's spot on the Republican presidential ticket made him an icon of their policy goals. Democrats aggressively campaigned against Ryan's budget proposals, particularly where they affected popular programs like Medicare and Social Security. Fact-checkers stopped short of validating the frequent Democratic campaign charge that the Ryan Plan would "end Medicare," but it's a much more accurate statement to say Ryan's proposal would privatize Medicare–and no less damaging politically.

The New York Times explores some of the politically unsightly details of Ryan's latest budget plan:

The unveiling Tuesday of Representative Paul D. Ryan’s newest Republican budget may have redrawn the battle lines for the 2014 election, detailing what his party could do with complete control of Congress and allowing Democrats to broaden the political terrain beyond health care and the narrower issues of the minimum wage and unemployment benefits… [Pols emphasis]

As with past budget proposals, Mr. Ryan seeks to eliminate the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, a $792 billion retrenchment, then turn the health care program for the poor into block grants to the states — saving an additional $732 billion over the decade. He would turn food stamps into a block grant program and cap spending, starting in 2020, cutting that program by $125 billion in five years. The budget relies on imposing new work requirements on food stamp and welfare recipients.

The Hill describes Democrats' countermessage:

To drive the issue home, the DCCC is launching an offensive effort called "Battleground Middle Class,” which will include robocalls in 76 districts, online advertisements and field effort investments. The DCCC unveiled their first round of Web ads as part of the new initiative on Wednesday, featuring an ominous-looking shot of a cloud-covered Capitol with the text, “Tell Congressman Coffman: Don’t sell out the middle class.”

In another Hill story yesterday afternoon, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) executive director Kelly Ward explained again why Colorado's CD-6 and vulnerable incumbent Rep. Mike Coffman is taking the brunt of this assault–apart from the fact that he earned it with his votes, of course.

In Colorado’s 6th, Ward said redistricting has made that race particularly competitive for Democrats.

“This is your sort of quintessential example of a district, where the district changed with redistricting, and the incumbent is now sort of out of touch and out of step with a very moderate district, and is having to kind of figure out how to reorient himself and is now admittedly fully out of touch with the new district,” she said.

In the latest Ryan Plan, Democrats see a chance to drive home a very powerful 2014 campaign message. It's difficult to understand why Ryan and the Republican House leadership continue to put forward these divisive budget proposals going into major elections. If Democrats do pick off Coffman this November, he may have his own party's budget proposal to blame–at least in part.

A vote could come in the House on this budget as soon as Friday, so Coffman had better think fast about how to handle this.

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18 thoughts on “DCCC Hits Coffman on New “Ryan Plan””

  1. At some point, Democrats are going to have to stop hiding behind their boogeymen and explain how they intend to pay for their freebies to buy lower class and inner city votes. Demonizing the opposition can only work for so long, then you have to deliver yourself. Isn't that what you all say about Obamacare?

    This summer, you'll see the GOP alternative for that too.

      1. Maybe we can repackage tax cuts for the wealthy for the 1,000th time, pay for it by fucking over the poor, and make it sound shiny and new by calling it something like " the freedom plan" !

        This could be big…

        1. A better title for the Koch Brother's tax cut bill would be the "Freedom of Religion and Ban Sharia Law Now Bill".  That would fly through the GOP-controlled House in record time!

    2. I assume by "the GOP alternative for that" you mean for ObamaCare.  Why do we have to wait until summer to see this alternative?  The GOP have had years to come up with a plan different from the GOP plan that we now call ObamaCare (I'm still pushing for HeritageCare, btw).  Why is it taking so very long, Mod?  Why is the GOP plan always over the next hill?  Why do we have to repeal ObamaCare now so that we can replace it with a plan to be named later?

      As you know it's because there cannot be a plan that improves insurance coverage and yet meets the demands of the voices in the current GOP.  The Libertarians say you get what you can pay for or none.  The TeaParticans want the socialist Kenyan demon plan gone, but that also want the gubmint's hands off their Medicare.  The Christian Right wants what Jesus would, but "whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me" has long since been drowned out by their notions of white entitlement and the prosperity gospel.  And moderate Republicans…well, I think they're all sitting in a closet, rocking back and forth, amd babbling to themselves while they flick the light switch on and off when they look at what's happened to their party.

      1. Entitlement reform is a game Democrats play year after year to win elections. Democrats claim to want reform when the news of impending collapse of Medicare and Social Security makes headlines, then you accuse Republicans of cruelty for actually proposing reforms. Everyone knows entitlement reform has to happen, Democrats just want to make sure it happens in a way they can blame someone else.

        Why did Obama put it on the table to begin with, libs? Use your brains, if you have any left after toking up on legal pot.

        1. Obama put forth a GOP healthcare plan because he seeks compromise, Mod.  I dare say the majority of "libs" would have preferred single payer.

          As for the rest, why'd you dodge my question?

    3. Poverty is less of a "lower class and inner city" thing and more of a "scourge that knows no geographical bounds"…  Your ignorance is beneath any man, woman or child who struggles to make a living in these challenging economic times.  (and this, coming from a Republican).

      “Few topics in American society have more myths and stereotypes surrounding them than poverty, misconceptions that distort both our politics and our domestic policy making. They include the notion that poverty affects a relatively small number of Americans, that the poor are impoverished for years at a time, that most of those in poverty live in inner cities, that too much welfare assistance is provided and that poverty is ultimately a result of not working hard enough. Although pervasive, each assumption is flat-out wrong.”

      1. I have mentioned before, Michael, that I grew up in eastern Kentucky in the 60s. I come from very common stock, not living in poverty, but very nearly so. We were surrounded by poverty and it was always a couple of missed paychecks away. Mom and Dad worked very hard to provide for four kids and an inevitable cousin or other that always seemed to be around.

        The problem with these neo-conservatives is they think know all about things they have never tasted. From poverty to pot, need to necessity, they have no clue. Still, their overpowering greed and stupifying fear move them to assume they are right…when the fact is, they don't know shit about much of anything but money and their love of it.

         

        1. Bam…

          My maternal grandparents who raised 13 children (mom was #2) on their small dairy farm in northern Minnesota.  Incredible people, who fully participated in the 'social contract': members of their community, school boards, local church (my grandmother never missed a morning mass when she was healthy).  But, in their retirement and final years they lived on their social security and medicaid took care of their health demands.  These assholes running the GOP show today would gleefully flush people like my grandparents down the river if they were alive today.  There is a really very special place in the warm regions of the underworld for these wealth mongers.

        2. I went to college at the Univerity of Arkansas in Fayetteville and drove a school bus for the public schools for a job. 

          In those days, the 'yonder' in Washington County, Arkansas was full of small cabins, generally with more than one generation of a family living in the Boston Mountains.  I'll never forget the first day on the route at the first stop – on top of the 'mountain'…five children came out of the house – none of them wearing shoes. And off to school we went.

    4. I believe the answer to that is one that honest conservatives have begun to buy into: an honest wage for honest work. I give you a day's work, you make sure I and my family can live for a day.

      Imagine the dent we could make in "freebies" if we weren't supplementing Wal-Mart and McDonald's workers with the extras they need to make up the gap between what they're being paid and what they need in order to survive.

  2. Drink the Kool-Aid (TM), Mikey.  Shoot yourself in both feet.  Vote along party lines all the time, Mikey, even if the party line is poisonous to your chances of re-election.  Just listen to the bobblehead yes men (AC, modster, yeah, I'm looking at you) and keep supporting far right causes.

    You're helping Romanoff every day, Mikey, and me, I like it.

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