We must have lower taxes on the 1%. How about we cut corporate taxes, keep the tax breaks in place, and raise taxes on the middle class? Or maybe just cut Social Security and Medicare. Or both!

Social Security Works spoke to several conservatives at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this past Friday, who were none too pleased to hear Mitt Romney he plans to cut Social Security and Medicare.

During Thursday night’s GOP debate, a woman from Florida told the candidates she’d lost her job and with it her health insurance. What would each of the candidates do to get her covered or otherwise provide the health care she needed?

You had to listen carefully, but the effective answer they all gave her was, “this is your problem, not ours.”

Many of the design principles for the insurance market exchanges in the Affordable Care Act were based on unproven, discredited, and frankly absurd conservative notions about the economagic of free markets. But too many liberals refused to acknowledge this until they saw Republicans like Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney make the same arguments.

A building and loan association, like the Bailey Brothers’ in It’s a Wonderful Life, uses the savings of its members to provide mortgages to the depositors. Members essentially pool their money to give each other the opportunity to buy cars and homes. But Mr. Potter scoffs at such “charity.” The GOP does the same with Social Security, Medicare and other programs that pool the nation’s wealth to help the middle class.

Politifact won the “Pompous Response to Criticism of the Year” award yesterday for their rebuttal to criticism about their awarding of the Lie of the Year to the correct claim by Democrats that Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity budget would end Medicare.

Politifact just told a whopper. It declared as a “lie” the fact that Paul Ryan’s proposal to transform Medicare from a government guaranteed benefit program to a voucher for private insurance that doesn’t guarantee benefits would not end Medicare. Politifact should have given the “lie of the year” award to itself.

In a surprise move, Paul Ryan found a Democratic partner to propose a new Medicare plan that does not fully privatize it, but instead keeps fee-for-service Medicare as an option alongside a premium support plan. This is the same proposal that the front-running Republican Presidential candidates have made.

I encourage readers to purchase two copies of The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism – one for themselves and one as a Christmas present for their right wing uncle. That uncle might well stay with Skocpol and Williamson’s highly readable and well-crafted study to the end without throwing it down in anger – something I can’t say with much confidence about my book with DiMaggio.

The House released their version of a year-end bill to extend unemployment benefits, a payroll tax cut and a “doc fix” to avoid a 27% cut in Medicare reimbursement. A look at the various elements of the bill make clear that Republicans have little interest in passing anything through Congress.