Revenue Neutral-- Not A Chance... So The GOP Wants To End Medicare, Medicaid And Social Security-- Will Voters Get Even?

What could make the anti-red wave bigger and higher? Mitch McConnell. He's already the most despised senator in the whole country but now he's running around salivating over the prospect of destroying Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, the ultimate, decades-long Republican dream. This is exactly what he and Ryan plotted when they passed the enormous and highly unpopular tax-cut for multimillionaires and billionaires last year. They wanted the deficit to scare people so they could cut essential programs, like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And now McConnell is starting to make his move, even before the election. Listen to his interview (video above) with Bloomberg News.

The GOP plan has always been to blame rising deficits and debt and interest rates on the Democrats' refusal to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

“It’s disappointing, but it’s not a Republican problem,” McConnell said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg News when asked about the rising deficits and debt. “It’s a bipartisan problem: unwillingness to address the real drivers of the debt by doing anything to adjust those programs to the demographics of America in the future.”

McConnell’s remarks came a day after the Treasury Department said the U.S. budget deficit grew to $779 billion in Donald Trump’s first full fiscal year as president, the result of the GOP’s tax cuts, bipartisan spending increases and rising interest payments on the national debt. That’s a 77 percent increase from the $439 billion deficit in fiscal 2015, when McConnell became majority leader.

McConnell said it would be “very difficult to do entitlement reform, and we’re talking about Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid,” with one party in charge of Congress and the White House.

“I think it’s pretty safe to say that entitlement changes, which is the real driver of the debt by any objective standard, may well be difficult if not impossible to achieve when you have unified government,” McConnell said.

Shrinking those popular programs-- either by reducing benefits or raising the retirement age-- without a bipartisan deal would risk a political backlash in the next election. Trump promised during his campaign that he wouldn’t cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, even though his budget proposals have included trims to all three programs.

McConnell said he had many conversations on the issue with former President Barack Obama, a Democrat. “He was a very smart guy, understood exactly what the problem was, understood divided government was the time to do it, but didn’t want to, because it was not part of his agenda,” McConnell said.

“I think it would be safe to say that the single biggest disappointment of my time in Congress has been our failure to address the entitlement issue, and it’s a shame, because now the Democrats are promising ‘Medicare for all,”’ he said. “I mean, my gosh, we can’t sustain the Medicare we have at the rate we’re going and that’s the height of irresponsibility.”

...The Office of Management and Budget has projected a deficit in the coming year of $1.085 trillion despite a healthy economy. And the Congressional Budget Office has forecast a return to trillion-dollar deficits by fiscal 2020.

During Trump’s presidency, Democrats and Republicans agreed to a sweeping deal to increase discretionary spending on defense and domestic programs, while his efforts to shrink spending on Obamacare mostly fell flat.

Republicans in December 2017 also passed a tax cut projected to add more than $1 trillion to the debt over a decade after leaders gave up on creating a plan that wouldn’t increase the debt under the Senate’s scoring rules.

At the time, McConnell told reporters, “I not only don’t think it will increase the deficit, I think it will be beyond revenue-neutral.” He added, “In other words, I think it will produce more than enough to fill that gap.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York responded Tuesday by saying McConnell and other Republicans “blew a $2 trillion hole in the federal deficit to fund a tax cut for the rich. To now suggest cutting earned middle-class programs like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid as the only fiscally responsible solution to solve the debt problem is nothing short of gaslighting."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said in a statement, “Under the GOP’s twisted agenda, we can afford tax cuts for billionaires, but not the benefits our seniors have earned.”

Chuck Todd and his team compiled a list of congressional districts they feel the Republicans are on the verge of losing in the anti-red wave. They started with 6 Democratic-held districts that could flip. One is a sure thing for the GOP: PA-14, an open seat-- Conor Lamb is moving to a safer seat-- where Republican Guy Reschenthaler is absolutely going to beat Bibiana Boerio. The PVI is R+20 and no matter how optimistic you are, R+20 districts are not going to be won by Democrats. Under the new boundaries Obama would have been crushed both times and Trump would have beaten Hillary 62.9% to 33.9%. So, forget that one. As for the other 5... Democrats will certainly hold onto Carol Shea-Porter's seat (NH-01) with Democrat Chris Pappas beating Republican Eddie Edwards. 538 gives Pappas a 7 in 8 chance (87.1%) chance of winning. I don't know why the district is on Todd's list. The 2 open seats each in Minnesota and Nevada make up the rest of the list but I'd say the Dems will certainly hold onto both Nevada seats and probably win one of the Minnesota seats (MN-01 and lose the other one (MN-08.

Then they list the 15 likeliest red to blue flips:

• VA-10- Jennifer Wexton will beat Barbara Comstock
• FL-27- Democrat Donna Shalala, a miserable candidate, will probably beat Republican Maria Salazar, though I'm less persuaded that Shalala will pull it off.
• NJ-02- Blue Dog Democrat Jeff Van Drew will beat Seth Grossman.
• NJ-11- Blue Dog Democrat Mikie Sherrill will beat Jay Webber.
• PA-05- Democrat Mary Gay Scanlon will beat Pearl Kim.
• PA-06- Democrat Chrissy Houlahan will beat Gregory McCauley.
• PA-07- Democrat Susan Wild will beat Marty Nothstein
• PA-17- Conor Lamb will oust Keith Rothfus
• AZ-02- New Dem Ann Kirkpatrick will beat Lea Marquez-Peterson
• CO-6- Jason Crow will likely oust Mike Coffman
• KS-03- Sharice David will oust Kevin Yoder
• MN-02- Angie Craig will oust Jason Lewis.
• MN-03- Dean Phillips will oust Erik Paulsen.
• IA-01- Abby Finkenauer will beat Rod Blum.
• CA-49- Mike Levin will beat Diane Harkey.

Their next category they call "the majority makes," 23 Democrats in toss-up races with recent momentum moving blue. They force probable losses for Andy Barr (KY-06), Scott Taylor (VA-02), Steve Chabot (OH-01), Carlos Curbelo (FL-26), Pete Roskam (IL-06), Mike Best (IL-12), Bruce Poliquin (ME-02), Tom MacArthur (NJ-03), Leonard Lance (NJ-07), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01), Mike Bishop (MI-08), John Faso (NY-19), Claudia Tenney (NY-22), John Culberson (TX-07), Pete Sessions (TX-32), David Young (IA-03), Steve Knight (CA-25), Mimi Walters (CA-45), and Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48). Then the open red seats, MI-11, WA-08 and NM-02, will fall, respectively, to Haley Stevens, Kim Schrier and Blue Dog Xochitl Torres Small.

This is all without much of an actual wave! So what happens if there is a wave? Todd thinks we'll be saying goodbye to Tom Garrett (VA-05), George Holding (NC-02), Ted Budd (NC-13), Vern Buchanan (FL-16), Rodney Davis (IL-14), Randy Hultgren (IL-14), Will Hurd (TX-23), John Carter (TX-31), Mia Love (UT-04), Jeff Denham (CA-10), Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA-03) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05), while open red seats WI-01 will fall to Randy Bryce, KS-02 to Blue Dog Paul Davis, CA-39 to Gil Cisneros, WV-03 to Richard Ojeda, and NC-09 to Dan McCready.

Then there are 16 seats if the wave turns into a tsunami:

• AR-02- Clarke Tucker in, French Hill out
• AZ-06- Anita Malik in, David Schweikert out
• CA-04- Jessica Morse in, Tom McClintock out
• FL-06- Nancy Soderberg over Michael Waltz
• FL-18- Lauren Baer in, Brian Mast out
• GA-06- Lucy McBath in, Karen Handel out
• GA-07- Carolyn Bourdeaux in Rob Woodall out
• IN-02- Mel Hall in Jackie Walorski out
• IA-04- J.D. Scholten in, Steve King out
• MI-01- Matt Morgan in, John Bergman out
• MO-02- Cort VanOstran in, Ann Wagner out
• NY-01- Perry Gershon in, Lee Zeldin out
• NY-02- Liuba Grechen Shirley in, Steve King out
• NY-11- Max Rose in, Dan Donovan out
• NY-27- Nate McMurray in, Chris Collins out
• OH-14- Betsy Rader in, David Joyce out.

There are even candidates with better chances than some of the above, like Ammar Campa-Najjar in San Diego County (who the Muslim-phobic DCCC is keeping off these kinds of lists, even though Campa-Najjar was born and has been a practicing Christian!), and James Thompson in Wichita and Mike Siegel in TX-10.