and speak up for his own values and explain why he believes democrats values are the right ones on this stuff, then as a liberal, i am less worried than i was. my only worry at this point is why did he give this speech at 1:30 on a wednesday and sort of whisper it? with a little fine tuning, i think this could be a barn burner, i could imagine this one in a stadium over and over and over again. we ll be right back. we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. we can t afford it. and i refuse to renew them again. let me be absolutely clear, i will preserve these health care programs as a promise we make to each other in the society. i will not allow medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry.
whatever you heard about this speech, whether or not you believe the way that i am describing it, whether or not you watched it today, i never say on this show, print out and read this thing, or very rarely say it. in this case, if you have a second read it. spend a few minutes reading it. if you are a liberal or if you are a centrist, if you are a person who voted for president obama, if you were worried that president obama would not confront the republicans on what they are trying to do with the economy and instead would try angulate against it. mr. obama did not do that. if you were worried he would sell out medicare, medicaid, social security and say we can at forward them any more, like the republicans wanted him to say? mr. obama did not do that. if you were worried he would let the republicans in the beltway media get away with this assertion they make constantly that social security is causing the deficit, when it is not?
a voucher program that we ve seen this game before, where republicans do huge tax cuts for upper income people and pay for those tax cuts by cutting medicare, it s what newt gingrich tried to do in 1995, when he said medicare should wither in the vines, you can go back 30 years before that, when republicans and conservatives opposed medicare because they didn t want a big program. medicare has brought up the poverty rate in the country among seniors is low. 99% of seniors have insurance now, and medicare was founded in 1965, only half of seniors had any kind of comprehensive insurance. it s been a tremendous success, and this crowd, the right wing in this country try every decade or so, we have to beat it back. and the president said exactly the right thing today. there was one portion of the speech toward the end that i
that fight to bring generic competition for the biologics and pharmaceuticals so they re more broadly on the market. it will mean huge savings for taxpayers, for seniors, strengthening the medicare program. because you can get the same kind of help from pharmaceuticals and medicine without paying such a huge price for it. that s just one example. let me ask you a specific senate question about how some of those specific types of policies are going to be worked out. why does the senate keep separating off into these gangs? these bipartisan even split noncommittees like this gang of six that s supposed to be doing work on deficit reduction proposals right now? democrats control the senate, why do work like this in a 50/50 split with republicans, instead of just doing it through the normal senate processes. i think it s kind of become a senate tradition that groups of people work on things. and that s fine in a formal way,
competition for the biologics and pharmaceuticals so they re more broadly on the market. it will mean huge savings for taxpayers, for seniors, strengthening the medicare program. because you can get the same kind of help from pharmaceuticals and medicine without paying such a huge price for it. that s just one example. let me ask you a specific senate question about how some of those specific types of policies are going to be worked out. why does the senate keep separating off into these gangs? these bipartisan even split noncommittees like this gang of six that s supposed to be doing work on deficit reduction proposals right now? democrats control the senate, why do work like this in a 50/50 split with republicans, instead of just doing it through the normal senate processes. i think it s kind of become a senate tradition that groups of people work on things. and that s fine in a formal way,