TRUMP ADMINISTRATION BETTER BE CAREFUL IN GOING AFTER THE A.A.R.P.

…A frame from the anti-Paul Ryan ad about throwing “Granny off the Cliff”.

 

 The AARP did NOT do the anti-Ryan ad showing Granny being thrown off the Cliff

 

As Republicans waited for the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to estimate the costs and coverage effects of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), they started early on at taking aim at the CBO and at all the interest groups that are critical of the Republican’s bill. Chief among them is the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), the 37 million+ American member association.

 

AARP’s fast opposition to the AHCA was captured by a recent ad in which an actor chopping wood referred to the bill as an “age tax”.  That is a sliding scale of tax credits that would lead to less money than older people are getting today from the ACA (Obamacare).

 

“The bill gives big drug companies a sweetheart tax break while doing nothing to help lower drug costs for everyday Americans,” said the AARP actor.

 

Asked about the ad on ABC News’ “This Week,” White House budget director, Mick Mulvaney just went after the AARP swinging a verbal Machete.

 

“I think that’s the same group, AARP, that did the television ads of — of a guy that looks a lot like Paul Ryan pushing Granny off the edge of a cliff back when we first started talking about budgetary reforms back in 2010,” said Mulvaney. “And my guess is that the millions of emails that that group and other groups are sending out today have a little ‘click here to donate’ button at the bottom.”

 

But AARP didn’t make the Granny television ad that Mulvaney was referring. In 2011, after House Republicans won the majority, Ryan had become the chairman of the House Budget Committee.

 

Ryan had already been made famous for his “Ryan plan” which would have shrunk America’s long-term fiscal obligations by cutting and capping all entitlements, including Social Security and Medicare.  Ryan’s Budget Committee launched a stricter, revised version which, in the words of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Ryan’s plan “essentially ended Medicare” by turning it into a premium support program with financial limitations.

 

AARP had strenuously opposed the Ryan budget, which, under President Obama, was mostly a Republican show piece. But it was the left-wing “Agenda Project” that ran the video dramatizing Ryan's “Granny going off a cliff.”

 

Today’s White House’s dismissal of AARP is in total contrast with how the parties, when trying to push entitlement reforms, typically operate. Throughout the lengthy Affordable Care Act debate, the Obama White House and congressional Democrats talked regularly to AARP in order for both to stay on the same page.   AARP eventually endorsed the passage of the ACA.

 

Back in the first George W. Bush administration, AARP was brought on board specifically to endorse his Medicare Part D.  They ran multimillion-dollar ads for shoring up votes from any wavering Republicans.

 

Any time the AARP has been left outside any of the issues, the reforms being pushed have typically failed.  Bush found that out in 2005, when he tried to make Social Security a privatization project in his second term.  (After winning his re-election, Dubya mistakenly thought he had gained enough political capital to make SS privatization happen.  He was very wrong.)  AARP came out with guns ablazing against it, mobilizing angry voters at town halls and blunting the impact of Bush’s own personal push, which had taken him around the country for months.

 

The Trump administration, and Republicans in Congress, have chosen this year to simply define AARP as yet another flawed liberal interest group.  It is believed that the GOP will pay a high price for taking that position.  The AARP is probably the best organized and most well informed group in the country.  The AARP association is full of those many seniors that have both the time and the interest in making sure they are up to date on what’s going in with their medical support and their retirement and Social Security issues.

 

However, the Trump administration has taken them on as just another biased and liberal interest group.  They are anything but that.

 

“They’re not in the news business; they’re not in the business of fixing things,” said Director Mulvaney. “They’re in the business of trying to protect their own self-interests and to raise money, and that’s unfortunate that that’s where a lot of folks will get their information.”

 

In this part, Mulvaney is correct.  The members of the AARP will do whatever it takes to protect their Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security or other retirement issues.

 

I hope that Mr. Mulvaney is already well set for his future retirement.  I would not want an organization with over 30 million senior members to be coming after me, once I left my place of employment.  The AARP could make Mr. Mulvaney’s retirement very uncomfortable if he continues to mistakenly miss-speak about their operation.

 

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