Irony Alert: "House Republicans are preparing to vote en bloc against the $106 billion war-spending bill, a position once unthinkable for the party that characterized the money as support for the troops," The Hill points out. "For years, Republicans portrayed the bills funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as matters of national security and accused Democrats who voted against them of voting against the troops."
"Congressional Republicans are at their weakest point politically in decades, but they still appear to be keeping Democrats on the defensive when it comes to national security," Roll Call writes
After years of trying to cut Medicare spending, Republican lawmakers have emerged as champions of the program, accusing Democrats of trying to steal from the elderly to cover the cost of health reform.For decades, the Republicans have been trying to gut Medicare. And every time they screamed bloody murder that the Democrats were "trying to scare seniors" when the Democrats pointed out what they were doing. Today, they are shamelessly doing exactly what they accused the Dems of doing --- and they are getting away with it.[...]
The cuts are designed to be relatively painless. Except for an increase in premiums for wealthier subscribers to the Medicare drug plan, the Baucus bill would not increase premiums or co-payments, or explicitly cut benefits, for most Medicare beneficiaries.
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Fifty-six percent of seniors said they thought reform would weaken the Medicare program. With seniors likely to make up nearly 20 percent of the electorate in 2010, Republicans see Medicare as a potent campaign issue. In the Finance Committee, GOP senators moved repeatedly to strip the spending cuts from the bill.
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