GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney was out paying homage to the Koch brothers this Friday evening at an event hosted by their front group, Americans for Prosperity in Washington DC and I could not do a better job of summing this speech up if I tried, so I'll just refer everyone to this post by Stephen D. Foster Jr. at Addicting Info -- Mitt Romney Vows To Privatize Medicare, Raise The Retirement Age, And Fire Thousands Of Government Workers:
During a speech to a group of conservative activists on Friday in Washington, Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said exactly what right wing extremists want to hear. Romney laid out his vision of government which includes privatizing Medicare, raising the retirement age, wiping out government agencies and jobs, making balanced budgets mandatory via constitutional amendment, and slashing funding for the arts, public broadcasting, family planning and passenger rail services. He also wants to give states more budget power.
The biggest and most critical portion of Romney’s plan is, of course, Medicare. Romney intends to privatize Medicare and turn it into a voucher system like Paul Ryan wanted to do in his budget plan.
“Medicare should not change for anyone who is in the program or who is about to be in it, we should honor the commitments we have made to our seniors. Tomorrow’s seniors should have the freedom to choose what their health coverage looks like. Younger Americans today, when they turn 65 should have a choice between traditional Medicare and other private health care plans. Competition will lower costs and increase the quality of health care.”
“Tomorrow’s seniors” will also have to wait much longer for Medicare since Romney also intends to raise the retirement age which is already 65 and 67 for people born after 1959.
Go read the rest since he goes into more detail of some of the other items Romney laid out in his speech. The clip above is the very end of his speech where's Romney is talking about raising the retirement age and privatizing Medicare. I've got more video below the fold.
I also wanted to add a bit more from Foster's post on just how dangerous Romney's agenda he laid out here is:
Overall, Romney’s plan is heartless, gutless, unimaginative, and caters to the extreme right wing, the wealthy, and to corporations. It’s a blueprint for making America fail and wiping out the middle class and should automatically disqualify him from holding any office. It kills the voice of the American people and destroys the programs we hold most dear. If a Republican wins the election next year, it will be perilous for the United States and the American people. Their policies have been destructive for thirty years, and now they want apocalypse.
The segment below is the better part of the beginning of his speech which has been shortened to take out pauses for applause, one standing ovation that lasted about a minute after he said he wanted to repeal "Obama-care" and a couple of the portions where he was talking about cutting government departments that oversee international trade and criticizing Obama for growing the size of government.
This screen shot is from a portion of the speech that didn't make the mashup above, but here's David Koch in the audience listening to Romney.
UPDATE: And here's more from Think Progress with some fact checking on Mitten's statements about Medicare during this speech -- Mitt Romney’s Medicare Mythology:
Mitt Romney laid out his Medicare reform plan at the “Defending the American Dream” summit in Washington, DC this afternoon, endorsing a Paul Ryan-like privatization scheme that would do more to shift costs to seniors than reduce overall health care spending. Below are the top four health care myths from Romney address... Read on...
