Blue America Trucks To Roll Across California

Blue Dog Jim Costa voted with the GOP to pay for TPP with cuts to Medicare

Big Business/Wall Street-oriented conservatives in California from both parties voted to fast-track the job-killing TPP last week. All of California's Republicans and most of the state's Blue Dogs and New Dems voted badly on the package of bills. So did a couple of normal Democrats-- Sam Farr, Anna Eshoo and Karen Bass. Most California congressmembers voted against the trade deal. These were the California Members who voted against the interests of their own constituents instead:

• Karen Bass (D-L.A.)
• Ami Bera (New Dem-Sacramento suburbs)
• Ken Calvert (R-Corona)
• Paul Cook (R-Death Valley)
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-Fresno)
• Susan Davis (New Dem-San Diego)
• Jeff Denham (R-Modesto)
• Anna Eshoo (D-Silicon Valley)
• Sam Farr (D-Monterey)
• Duncan Hunter (R-Escondido)
• Darrell Issa (R-Oceanside)
• Steve Knight (R-Santa Clarita)
• Doug LaMalfa (R-Redding)
• Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield)
• Tom McClintock (R-Roseville)
• Devin Nunes (R-Tulare)
• Scott Peters (New Dem-San Diego)
• Dana Rohrabacher (R-Newport Beach)
• Ed Royce (R-Fullerton)
• David Valadao (R-Bakersfield)
• Mimi Walters (R-Irvine)

Some of these Members will be visited by a beautiful Blue America billboard truck driving up and down roads in their districts, explaining the perfidy their congressmembers have committed, especially emphasizing that they voted to steal $700 million from Medicare to grease the wheels for TPP. 

Republicans don't care that much about that message, but Democrats do, and the dishonest and ignorant slugs from what has become a pathetic and sad OFA are fanning out across the Internet to lie about how TPP backers voted to cut Medicare, which supposedly helps offset trade adjustment assistance in the bill the Republicans wrote, extending the sequester in 2024. Ask you friends at OFA or the GOP why, if trade creates all these economic benefits, they have to steal money from Medicare to pay for the negative consequences of trade. Just take it out of all those fabulous benefits they're always hyping! OFA claims a vote for the TPP package was not really a vote to cut Medicare. They're wrong; the vote these Members took extends Medicare sequestration, and that is a cut. David Dayen exposes the lie:

[E]ven though supporters constantly talk up the economic benefits of trade, they nevertheless offset the $2.9 billion in TAA funding by cutting other spending. Supposedly, trade increases jobs and therefore federal revenue, leaving enough money available to pay for TAA. But in Congress' eyes, some other priority has to pony up that cash nonetheless.

That priority happens to be Medicare. TAA is partially financed through $700 million in Medicare cuts. Sequestration expires in fiscal year 2024, but the TAA bill expands it by piling those cuts onto the back end. Most of the other $2.2 billion gets financed through customs user fees.

...[T]his continues a very dangerous precedent: When anyone in Congress wants to pay for something, they just push sequestration out a bit more or expand it a hair, chipping away at social services and essentially robbing Peter to pay Paul. This has happened twice before; once to pay for the Ryan-Murray budget, and once to pay for reversing pension cuts for veterans. Sequestration was only supposed to last until 2021; after TAA, the date would be pushed out to 2024 and counting.

As National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare President and CEO Max Richtman told the National Journal, "Apparently using Medicare as a piggy bank to pay for everything under the sun has become the new legislative norm for Congress." The signature single-payer health care program for seniors has become a Congressional slush fund.

This is not acceptable-- at least not to Democrats or Independents, and not even to remotely sane Republican voters. What the deluded suckers at OFA are hiding from their own zombified members is that sequestration goes from 0% (Oct-March) to minus 25% for the same period. Enjoy the trucks when they come rolling through your hometown. If you want to help us keep them on the road longer-- here's the page.