Page 27 - Means Testing News Today

Pay for three years. cutting the government workforce by 10%, and then means testing millionaires and billionaires in terms of health benefits, feeling like if you do means testing and you dont give millionaires and billionaires health benefits, essentially that is a way to save some money. senator harry reid, the majority leader, says the republican plan is essentially protecting the rich while short changing the middle class. both the democratic version and the republican version are not expec...

Do that rather than raising taxes on the wealthiest americans. are you okay with that? >> simpson bowles kind of called for that. i am for some sort of means testing. i am not for holding this up so that many americans, middle class, hard-working people have a tax increase when they can least afford it. i think that the republican party has to get their act together or they are losing their biggest issue next year. martha: the biggest issue for republicans seems to be, look, you have to be fisca...

Government giving you more. martha: thats why im saying that it looks like the other senator from nevada, senator heller may have touched on something. why dont you trim benefits for the wealthy instead of raising taxes on the wealthy. it sounds like both of you agree on that. how come we cant get the folks in congress to change the tax code, trim benefits, do some means testing. those things resonate with american people. they are just shaking their heads and saying, why isnt that just happenin...

Them and some means testing to make sure the wealthy do not receive government services since they are are wealthy. here is republican leader mcconnell on why he favors an extension. >> no reason folks should more than they are presidents failure to turn the jobs crisis around but no reason we should pay for that relief by raising taxes on the employer we count on to help jolt this economy back to life. >>reporter: thats the republican argument about the democratic plan to impose a surtax on mil...

>> luke, whats the next step. >> the question is how to get there. there are two plans. first the democratic plan which is going to come up for a vote today or tomorrow would have a surtax on millionaires. that would be used to pay for that plan. thats not good enough for republicans because they say that is a tax on job creators. yesterday they introduced their own plan. look at what they had to do on that screen. a three year pay freeze, cutting the government work force by 10%. means testing ...

We need to cut entitlements. republicans, you need to give at least on revenue for unraveling some of these tax codes and that kind of thing that would pump up revenue. he could have brokered some sort of thing that might have made him look better. >> let me try to get the record straight here. they didnt do it well but two weeks before the deadline the democrats in fact did offer up entitlement reform including means testing for medicare and social security, increasing the age of social securit...

Health care. we have a broken health care system. if we paid the same amount per person as -- pick your country -- wed be looking at long-term budget surpluses, not deficits. so serious people talking about fixing the u.s. health care system as the long-term issue. in the short-term issue, they talk about creating jobs. because thats what we really need. >> so jobs in the short-term, health reform in the long-term. dean bakers test to see whether youre serious. peter, same question for you. >> w...

We are not going to abandon seniors and children. >> reporter: the problem is the federal government made tens of trillions more in problem is -- promises in medicare and other problems than it can possibly pay for. thats why the super-committee looked at modest changes to entitlements including means testing, making wealthy seniors pay more and get less. listen. >> even the president has said the major drivers of our debt are medicare, medicaid, and health care. nothing else comes close. >> rep...

Basically did sort of, you , disparity between warren buffet and his secretary when it came to those issues, yet they hated that idea. doesnt that seem weird to you? >> well, they didnt hate that idea in his plan. what they hated, the idea that making medicare into a voucher program that runs out. if grandma needs a hip replacement under ryans plan, shes going to have to pay for it out of her pocket. i dont know what shes going to do, maybe wash cars or sell cookies on the street. martha: wait a...

To blame other people and paul ryan is absolutely right, he has to rely on the politics of division rather than the politics of unity that he ran on in 2008 and -- 2008 and the idea that you can fund the government we have based on the top 1 percent is ularly dishonest as paul ryan pointed out in his speech, you could confiscate all the wealth of people making more than $250,000 a year and youre funding the government for six months, so eventually the tax burden -- >> it has to fall -- it will f...