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Because it pushes the conversation to the right

Matt Yglesias says:

The big news of the day is Rep Eric Cantor (R-VA) conceding the obvious point that Medicare won't be privatized as part of a bipartisan budget deal....

This all kind of raises the question, however, of why the Republican leadership pushed Paul Ryan's Medicare privatization plan in the first place. Obviously the fact that they favor privatizing Medicare played some role in that. But conventional wisdom is that the smart time to push a major piece of politically controversial legislation is when you can pass it into law... But right now anything the House passes still needs to go through a Democratic-controlled Senate and then Barack Obama's desk. So what's the point in asking vulnerable members of congress to vote for taking away seniors' health care benefits?

The answer is that Barack Obama responded to Ryan's plan by endorsing the Simpson-Bowles plan. Caveats to that endorsement apply, but before the Ryan plan, Simpson-Bowles was the most right-wing plan that was being taken seriously. After the Ryan plan, it's the sensible center.

Or to put it in Chocobo-speak: "Fight fight fight! And never give up!". Something the Democrats would do well to learn.

By fnord12 | May 5, 2011, 12:59 PM | Liberal Outrage


Reference from SuperMegaMonkey

The SuperMegaMonkey Paul Ryan primer.    Read More: Aww man, now i've gotta pay attention to politics again