Earlier this week, Mitt Romney pledged torestore Obamacare’s savings in the Medicare program — a move that would move up the insolvency date of the program’s trust fund from 2024 to 2016.
On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked Romney senior adviser Ed Gillespie how the campaign would extend the life of the program if the Romney-Ryan reforms won’t kick in until 2023, long after Medicare reached insolvency. Gillespie replied by insisting that a Romney administration would raise the age eligibility to 67:
WALLACE: But the problem is, those reforms don’t kick in until 2023. It doesn’t affect any seniors or anybody close to being a senior. But that doesn’t solve the Medicare part A problem which kicks in in 2016. What are you going to do to keep solvent between 2016, after you have repealed Obamacare, and 2023?
GILLESPIE: Governor Romney supports increasing over time bringing Medicare eligibility in line with the Social Security retirement age … The Congressional Budget Office says assumptions about the Medicare trust fund being solvent through 2024 under the Obamacare proposal is unrealistic.
Watch it:
Numerous studies have shown that booting 65- and 66-year-olds from Medicare would in facthave only modest savings, while raising health care costs across the board for seniors. Though Medicare spending itself would be reduced by 5 percent, the seniors taken out of the system would then have to turn to employers, other government programs and the states, increasing costs. As a result many of the people who would otherwise have enrolled in Medicare would face higher premiums for health insurance, higher out-of-pocket costs for health care, or both.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) estimates costs could “total $11.4 billion — twice the net savings to the federal government” in 2014 alone. Medicare’s market power would inevitably suffer as well:
Raising the Medicare age would shift costs to most of the 65- and 66-year olds who would lose Medicare coverage, to remaining Medicare beneficiaries, to employers that provide coverage for their retirees, and to states. These cost increases would, in total, more than offset the savings to the federal government. Moreover, by further shrinking Medicare’s share of the health insurance market, raising Medicare’s eligibility age would reduce its market power and weaken its ability to serve as a leader in controlling health care costs in the future.
Beginning in 2023, Ryan’s FY 2013 budget would “raise the eligibility age for Medicare — now 65 — by two months per year until it reaches age 67 in 2034.” But if Romney hopes to extend the life of the trust fund by booting younger seniors off of the program, he would have to institute the policy sooner and faster than Ryan has proposed.
Senior Romney adviser Ed Gillespie was caught off guard Wednesday when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked him how long Romney’s budget proposal would take to balance the national budget:
BLITZER: How many years would it take for the Romney budget to result in a balanced budget?
GILLESPIE: Uh…Wolf, I’m not sure of that myself, actually. I’ll get that to you though and I’m sure it’s on our website. I should know it and I’m embarrassed on your air that I don’t have that number at the top of my head. I didn’t know we were going to talk about that today. I apologize. I should have prepared for that question. I didn’t know you were going to ask.
Watch it:
Gillespie didn’t have the number on hand because, as Romney himself said in March, his budget plan “can’t be scored” and is missing key details about which deductions it would eliminate. Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan failed to answer the same question a day earlier, telling Fox News’ Brit Hume, “I don’t know exactly what the balance is. I don’t want to get wonky on you, but we haven’t run the numbers on that specific plan.” In sum, Romney’s plan is “mathematically impossible.”
The Romney budget requires even harsher cuts in entitlement programs than Ryan’s radical House-endorsed plan. Ten-year cuts in spending would range from one-third deeper than those in the Ryan budget to almost twice as deep as the Ryan cuts, with potentially disastrous consequences for low-income and middle class Americans — including taking food stamps away from as many as 13 million people.
Mitt Romney’s campaign has pushed back against calls he release more tax returns by insisting that former presidential candidates have only publicized a couple of years of tax documents.
“Well, as you know, the standard of– of releasing fully two years of returns, which goes above what the law requires, was a standard that Senator John McCain had adhered to as the Republican nominee in the last presidential campaign,” Romney adviser Ed Gillespie explained on Meet The Press this Sunday. “This is standard Senator Kerry adhered to as the Democratic nominee in the– in the election before that.”
But Gillespie, who served as the Chairman of the Republican National Committee during the 2004 presidential election, must know that “Kerry had put a total of 20 years of tax returns into the public domain by the time he ran for president.” After all, throughout that campaign he personally insisted that Kerry’s wife Teresa Heinz-Kerry, who files taxes separately from her husband, publicize her tax information — a position that is in direct conflict with his current spin for Romney. From an October 14, 2004 RNC press release:
“Throughout history, presidential candidates have disclosed income tax information prior to Election Day. We believe Americans value disclosure and transparency in campaigns.
During the 2003 filing year, Sen. Kerry made a $6 million loan to his campaign based on the value of a home jointly owned with his wife.
“Were it not for that infusion of cash John Kerry might not be on the campaign trail today. Because of her financial interest in the presidential campaign of her husband, Teresa Heinz Kerry pledged to disclose her tax information on October 15. Tomorrow is October 15 and Americans will find out if they plan to keep that promise.”
Throughout the 2004 campaign, Republicans pressured Heinz-Kerry to publicize her tax returns, given her investment in her husband’s campaign. She eventually released more information in October of that year, as Gillespie insisted that the documents presented “a legitimate question” for voters. Eight years later, the former RNC head is singing a decidedly different tune.
By The Associated Press
A deep-pocketed alliance with ties to top Republicans Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie is pumping more than $4 million into key Senate races in a single week of advertising, a crucial infusion to counter a surge in Democratic Party spending as Election Day draws near.
The new wave of ads by Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies and its affiliate, American Crossroads, comes during the final, most intense weeks of the congressional campaign. The money, together with that of other groups aligned with the GOP, represents a new beachhead in this year's less regulated world of money and politics.
For the two Crossroads groups, the new spending means they have poured nearly $14 million into fiercely competitive Senate races in eight states — Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Colorado and Washington — since August.
Overall spending this year in House and Senate races by candidates, outside groups and the political parties had reached $220 million as of mid-September, according to a Wesleyan University analysis of ad data from Kantar Media/CMAG. Most was by candidates, but nearly one-fifth came from interest groups, a vast majority favoring Republicans.
Crossroads' efforts are among the most prominent examples in the increased political activity by tax-exempt nonprofit groups, illustrating new terrain in campaign finance. A landmark Supreme Court case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, opened the way early this year for corporations and unions to spend money in elections. New FEC guidelines and lower court rulings have also contributed to a more freewheeling environment.
As a result, the Internal Revenue Service has come under increasing pressure from Democrats to act against conservative or GOP-allied groups, placing the tax agency in an awkward position of being dragged into a political fight that it can't possibly address until well after the Nov. 2 elections are over.
On Tuesday, two organizations that advocate for tougher campaign finance rules filed a complaint with the IRS asking it to investigate the tax-exempt status of Crossroads GPS.
"If we are correct, then tax laws are being abused to hide donors," Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer said in an interview.
Together, Crossroads GPS and American Crossroads have raised $32 million this year. American Crossroads, created as a political organization under a separate section of the tax code, has to disclose its donors. But Crossroads GPS, formed as a tax-exempt group, does not. Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio said the group has carefully followed laws governing such corporations.
The new ads by Crossroads GPS target Senate races in Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Washington state. The biggest spending is more than a $1 million in Florida assailing Gov. Charlie Crist, the former Republican who is running for the Senate as an independent. American Crossroads is airing ads in Nevada and Colorado.
The ads differ slightly. American Crossroads ads make a more direct appeal to voters to oppose Democrats; Crossroads GPS tell viewers to contact candidates to tell them they oppose their stand on issues. The difference is significant because Crossroads, as a tax-exempt organization, could argue it is airing issue ads and does not directly intervene in an election.
Every election cycle uncovers a new trend or loophole that is exploited by either party in hopes of gaining an advantage. Much of the activity taking place this year occurred to a lesser extent before. But campaign finance lawyers contend the Citizens United decision made it easier for corporations to agree to give to groups involved in politics.
"It reduced a sort of psychological barrier that may have been holding back some corporate money," said Marcus Owens, a lawyer and former head of the IRS division overseeing tax-exempt organizations.
Under the tax code, those organizations have the right to conduct political campaign activity as long as it is not the primary mission of the group. According to the IRS, what constitutes political activity is determined by the "facts and circumstances" of each case.
Last week, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Democrat Max Baucus of Montana, called on the IRS to investigate all tax-exempt groups involved in political activity. In recent weeks, President Barack Obama and top White House aides have also denounced the rise of conservative nonprofit groups that have been airing ads against Democrats in House and Senate battlegrounds.
In August, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee asked the IRS look into Americans for Prosperity Foundation, founded by billionaire conservative David Koch.
"It's obvious they have had a planned attack from the highest levels of the White House," said Cleta Mitchell, a campaign finance lawyer who has represented a number of conservative groups. "You have Democrats in office seeking to use the IRS to punish their political enemies."
Crossroads spokesman Collegio called the complaint against his organization baseless, and said it was filed by a partisan group that "files baseless complaints for its living."
"Liberal groups spent more than $400 million in undisclosed campaign money in 2008 alone, with nary a peep of protest from any of these groups," he said.
Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center have long called for tougher rules on campaign money and have filed Federal Election Commission complaints against groups allied with both parties. The Campaign Legal Center's president and general counsel is Trevor Potter, who was the top lawyer for Republican Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign.
Campaign finance lawyers said using the IRS to tackle questions of political money may prove difficult. Owens pointed out that, with extensions, a corporation formed in 2010 would not have to file a return with the IRS until as late as November 2011 — "Long after the election and quite possibly long after the organization went out of business."
"The IRS mechanism," he added, "is designed to collect taxes, not regulate political campaigns."
Lawrence Noble, a former FEC general counsel, said regulating tax-exempt organizations represents a small fraction of IRS activities. What's more, he added, "People get very nervous about the IRS getting involved in politics."
GOP operatives Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie recently founded a network of right-wing attack groups to rival what they view as inept and ineffective Republican National Committee. One of those groups, American Crossroads, is a 527 committee, formed to spend tens of millions of dollars on House and Senate races this year.
The group recently launched an ad in Nevada attacking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D):
It’s bad enough that Nevada has the highest unemployment in the nation. And Harry Reid claims to be helping the jobs situation? Really Harry? Recent data show Nevada ranks 50th in the money received from Harry’s stimulus bill. That’s right — Senate leader Harry Reid has gotten his own state less help than every other state but one. And along with bailouts, deficits, and Obamacare, that’s what Harry Reid’s done for Nevada. Really Harry? That’s not the kinda help Nevada needs.
Watch it:
Is American Crossroads really concerned about who gets what monies from the Recovery Act? Here’s Rove and Gillespie attacking the stimulus:
GILLESPIE: The fact is that we’ve got unemployment at 9.5 percent. They said it wasn’t going to go above 8 when they passed the stimulus. We have a $1.4 trillion deficit. We have $13 trillion in debt.
ROVE: Look, the stimulus bill was not stimulative. The American economy is strong enough it’s gonna come out of recession. The question is did these policies impede or speed up its recovery. I think they impeded its recovery. I don’t think they sped it up.
Rove even attacked the stimulus for not creating jobs. “We’re approaching the anniversary of the stimulus package, and a recent poll shows, and I think it was 9 percent of the American people think the stimulus package has helped create jobs,” he said.
Moreover, Nevada is one of the smallest states in the U.S. and as the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson noted, “stimulus money went disproportionately to states with larger public sectors and higher Medicaid bills.” In fact, it’s Reid who has been trying to get unemployment benefits extended for out-of-work Americans, but Senate Republicans have been blocking it from getting though. “Almost two million people who are long-term unemployed. These are not numbers. They are people,” Reid said scolding the GOP for their obstruction.
“The ad is factually accurate, [but] It’s also an embarrassment,” Thompson noted. “Republicans have spent the last three months blocking a Sen. Reid-endorsed extension to unemployment insurance that would particularly help Nevada.”
