Raw Story: Appearing on “The Young Turks” Thursday, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) agreed with Republicans that cuts are needed to restore the nation’s fiscal outlook, but he wants to look in the last place conservatives are interested in curtailing: corporate welfare.
“If Republicans want to have a conversation about cuts, we should have a conversation about cuts,” Ellison, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told host Cenk Uygur. “Let’s start with Medicare Part D and say, ‘If you want to save money, you want to cut the deficit, let’s let there be competitive bidding for Medicare Part D prescription drugs. That would save about $150 billion.”
It is of course an excellent point. While we're at it we can discontinue subsidies to big oil and those massive payouts to the GOP crony war profiteers. But this Medicare Part D thing is particularly instructive in highlighting the massive cesspool of corruption that is the Republican party. There's no reason the government shouldn't be able to negotiate better prices for high volume purchases just as a private party would. That the GOP specifically banned it is one of the clearest examples yet of the party picking the pocket of the taxpayer to pay their crony political supporters, this time in big pharma. Republicans literally get elected so they can rob you.
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