(Alexandria, Virginia) – 60 Plus Chairman Jim Martin, leader of the nation’s largest conservative seniors organization with over 7.1 million senior supporters, today lashed back at President Obama for comments he made regarding the budget blueprint of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), which passed the House last week 228 to 191.
Speaking at the Associated Press’ annual meeting in Washington, D.C., the President said the Ryan plan would ‘end Medicare as we know it.’ Martin countered that, “there’s an old saying that a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its shoes on and a lie left unchallenged becomes gospel.
“The President’s statement is a world-class whopper and he knows it. The unvarnished truth is that it’s the President’s plan that is cruel and unusual punishment on the elderly. It’s the President’s plan, not Mr. Ryan’s plan, that tragically ‘ends Medicare as we know it’ by slashing $500 billion out of payments to health care providers, leading to fewer doctors and longer lines of seniors seeking treatment.
“In 2010, the President’s party lost control of the House of Representatives, primarily because of this terrible piece of legislation. The Democrats got the message. They are about to lose control of the U.S. Senate in 2012 and the President will probably lose the White House. So the Blame Game is on in full force. Blame the Republicans for the Democrats’ mistakes. Seniors voted overwhelmingly against Obamacare in 2010 and that same senior citizen tsunami will come ashore again in 2012.
“Rep. Ryan’s plan is a laudatory effort to save Medicare which is predicted to go bankrupt in an estimated 9 to 10 years. Even the President’s top aide at the time, former White House Chief of Staff William Daly, said it would be bankrupt in 5 years. But the President and his party continue to bury their heads in the sand while frightening the elderly with their shameful ‘Medi-Scare’ campaign.
“The President also has the audacity to call the just-passed Ryan budget ‘radical,’ yet the President’s own budget failed in the House last week by a vote of 414 to 0. A budget that can’t earn even one vote, not even one Democrat, is, to use the President’s choice of words, ‘radical,’ to say the least.”
-30-
