WRITE OF CENTER
The dictionary definition of demagoguery is political activity or practices that seek support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational arguments.
I remember a classic example from 1984. It was a presidential year and our Republican nominees were President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush.
Early in the campaign, they decided not to respond to their opponent’s negative messaging. The opposition unleashed a tsunami of nasty attack ads, but the Reagan campaign was determined to stay on the high ground.
The Reagan campaign themes were “It’s Morning in America” and “Let’s Make America Great Again.” Sound familiar?
Ed Rollins was Reagan’s campaign director. One morning he was in his office, monitoring the news on several televisions. Speaker Tip O’Neill, a Democrat, was railing against proposed cuts to school lunch programs. The program was notorious for waste and abuse, prompting Republicans to propose those commonsense reforms.
But there was O’Neill, ranting about “ taking food out of the mouths of children” and other such demagoguery.
Rollins pondered that vitriolic rhetoric. His fighting instincts wanted to fight back. Moments later, his phone rang. It was Nancy Reagan, with his new marching orders. She said, “Ed, it’s time to take off the gloves. We cannot let this go unanswered.”
Reagan went on to score one of the greatest presidential landslides in American history. He won 49 states, which doesn’t even seem possible today. He won 97.6% of electoral votes. Fast forward to 2025, and once again the Republicans are the grownups in the room, dealing with their opponent’s demagoguery.
The GOP has changed an awful trend for American taxpayers; in this case, a Medicaid program that is out of control.
Today, inflation- adjusted federal welfare spending is 2.7 times its 1996 level. And the federal debt is four times as large.
President Trump just signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which contains some commonsense spending reforms that deal with a runaway Medicaid program. It’s important to note that Medicaid itself is not being reduced, simply its growth rate is being reduced. Here are some facts for rational minds to consider.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that 7.8 million more Americans won’t have health insurance 10 years from now due to these Medicaid reforms. Of those 7.8 million, 4.8 million are uninsured because they currently do not comply with the law’s part-time work requirement, although it has only been on the books since July 4 of this year.
It now requires able-bodied, prime-age adults without children to work or volunteer 20 hours per week. That’s a very modest, reasonable requirement. States are given until Jan. 1, 2027, to enforce the new work requirements, though implementation may vary by state.
The American Enterprise Institute reports that of those Medicaid recipients who are not working, the most common activity after sleeping is watching television and playing video games. On average, they spend 4.2 hours per day watching TV and playing video games.
In the interest of fairness to the taxpayers, Republicans think those 4.8 million Americans should be required to get off the couch and volunteer or work 20 hours per week. The law now requires exactly that.
But it gets worse. Another 1.4 million of the uninsured, according to the CBO, are people who do not meet citizenship and immigration status requirements for Medicaid enrollment. In other words, illegal immigrants who are on the American taxpayer dole.
And even worse, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reported that 1.2 million Americans last year were enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in two or more states at the same time.
As it turns out, the Biden administration banned states from checking Medicaid eligibility more than once a year. Incredibly, the federal government under Biden was restraining the states from uncovering fraud.
Well, now those days are over. There’s a new sheriff in town.
And yet, the demagogs are attacking these Medicaid reforms. They rail about “snatching healthcare from children.” They are not interested in basic facts and reasoning and they don’t seem to understand that something must be done to save a program like Medicaid for the truly needy.
The cold, hard truth is that the federal government is broke, out of money. Republicans are working hard to fix that. We need to get couch potatoes and fraudsters off Medicaid. Republicans don’t support free stuff, we support freedom.
Scott S. Kramer is former Chairman of the Kendall County Republican Party.
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