I see that Steve Benen’s upset over the latest Republican ploy:
A couple of months ago, Sen. Rick Scott pushed a line of attack that was ridiculous, even by his standards. Democrats, the Florida Republican insisted, had just successfully “cut $280 billion from Medicare.”
Part of the problem was with the messenger — Scott used to oversee a company that committed Medicare fraud on a massive and historic scale — but the message itself was about as offensive. The GOP senator was referring to the Inflation Reduction Act, which included provisions that empower the Medicare program to negotiate lower prices for consumers on prescription medications.
Because seniors will pay less, and taxpayers will save money, Scott described it as a “cut.” As we discussed soon after, in the English language, there is no credible definition of “cut” under which this falls, but the Floridian pushed the line anyway.
And now this claim is being packaged as a TV attack ad. Ah, the odiousness of it all!
And it’s truly dishonest, make no mistake. A savings achieved through smart legislating is not a cut, it’s a savings.
But is it any more odious than the Democratic practice of supporting extremist Republicans during primaries in hopes that a candidate unacceptable to voters, particularly due to poor reasoning or the simple power-seeker with no restraints, in the general wins the Republican nomination?
Isn’t that intrinsically dishonest? Even when no less a personage than the late Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) did it with challenger Sharon Angle (R) in 2010?
Look, dirty campaigning is more of an American tradition than a crime, but outrage over something like this seems a bit overdone, at least to this independent.
