Antonio Villaraigosa Quotes
But I will say, I think there are some Democrats that don't want to address pension reform. I have taken on the issue of seniority and tenure. I think we have to address entitlements and the president has done that in his budget. I think we have to extend Medicare and the president has done that. But also reinvest in that program.
CNN Transcripts. "State of the Union with Candy Crowley." CNN, 2 Sept. 2012.
This is one of the rare occasions where the person appointed to lead a major governmental program, publicy trashed the program and told citizens that they would never receive the benefits that they had already paid for. She was a partisan political appointment who had no real credentials, preparation or previous experience and her statement was so overtly political that few took the statement seriously although there were well known problems that Congress could fix as soon as they have the political will to do so. In the 15 years since this statement not a single worker has failed to obtain any benefits to which he/she was entitled. To see why such a statement can never be made with any certainty, see {619986} which explains the essence of Social Security.
A professional mature female actress spoke the words. The Majority of the Republicans voted against the Medicare law that had passed under Lyndon Johnson. They lost millions of votes over that for years. Then at the end of the 20th century, many Republicans tried to reduce or privatize Medicare which by then was second only to Social Security among all government programs. The Democrats then used many variants of this Schwartz ad to great effect.
With entitlement programs, Congress and the Administration have very little control over the annual expenditures because once someone is legally entitled to a benefit, the government must pay it. It is not a matter of discretion but an obligation.
Both of these programs have been amongst the most popular programs in American History. Yet for Republican conservatives at the beginning of the 21st century, these were programs that they wanted to either terminate of alter in such severe manners that they would not be anything like the original programs. When these programs were passed by Congress, most Republicans were opposed to the legislation but enough were supportive to have bipartisan support. However, by 2000, most liberal Republicans had been driven out of the party, and it was the Democrats who kept the programs alive and in force despite the Republican assaults. The Democrats had public opinion on their side on these battles and even most registered Republicans opposed President George W. Bush’s major attempt to privatize Social Security.
The reason this quotation is noteworthy is the reality that Medicare is the largest Federal Government program that there is. It is not only funded by the Government, but Government employees actually operate it from making the policies to paying the tens of millions of bills to doctors and hospitals. The protester who created the sign, like the overwhelming majority of Tea Party enthusiasts are opposed to big government and especially to government involvement in any health care operations. Obamacare was very controversial and most Tea Party enthusiasts were lobbying heavily against the Government “taking over” the American health care system. Medicare is one of the most popular Federal programs in American history and many people who were opposed to Federal health program management and were ignorant of the fact that Medicare was operated by the Government, were expressing their concern. The sign did not seem to distress any of the thousands of Tea Party followers in the audience, but the main takeaway was that there were many American who just assumed that anything that was run well and they liked could not be run by the government.
Antonio Ramón Villaraigosa is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 41st Mayor of Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013.
