By
James Lincoln Collier
I had to go out to Centerville on family business and lunch with Cousin Fran was unavoidable. We met at the Soup Spoon – I could have done without the undead meat- loaf and the well-oiled home fries, but Fran said that everywhere else was too expensive and you could always dry the fries with a paper napkin. We had hardly settled in our seats when Fran was off and running. “Have you been watching these conventions?”
“I didn’t know you cared for politics, Fran. You always said that politicians were all crooked and had their hands in everybody’s pockets.”
“It’s the truth,” she insisted. “Where do you think they get the money for these conventions?”
My martini came and I took a large swallow. “Don’t you trust any of them, Fran?”
She considered. “Well this guy Ryan seems like he’s better than most. I think he could make a good president.”
“He’s running for vice-president, Fran.”
“Don’t you think I know that? But he could be president some day.”
“That’s true. But he seems a little confused to me. First he said something about giving our children the America that was given to us, and then he said that America needs a turn-around.”
She eyed me suspiciously. “What’s wrong with that? We do need a turn-around. Look at the mess we’re in – all these wars with the Arabs. What did the Arabs ever do to us?”
“It was George Bush who started that.”
“Why is everyone always blaming everything on Bush? He did his best.”
I fortified myself with another swallow of my martini. “You’re missing my point. I’m only trying to say that Ryan doesn’t seem to realize that he’s contradicting himself, first calling for a turn-around and then saying that we ought to keep America the same. He wants to change everything without changing anything.”
“How can you say that? He just wants to get rid of Medicare.”
“What’s wrong with Medicare?”
She dug her fork into her grapefruit salad. “What’s wrong with it? Do you want some bureaucrat deciding if you‘re sick?”
“I don’t think that’s part of the plan, Fran.”
She raised a piece of grapefruit towards her mouth, “And another thing, where’s the money going to come from?”
I picked up my spoon and fished around in my martini for the pearl onions. “It seems to me that’s another problem with Romney’s plan. He wants to reduce the deficit, stop what he calls ‘reckless defense cuts,’ and crank up the Cold War with Russia. That’s going to cost a lot of money. At the same time he says he’s going to cut taxes. He can’t do both. It doesn’t add up.”
Fran looked vaguely around the room. “He explained all that.”
“What he said was that he’ll make ‘reductions in other areas.’ He didn’t say what areas.”
Fran patted her home fries with her paper napkin. “That’s what I’ve been trying to say all along. We can’t afford all of these programs.”
“What would you cut? Medicare? Who’s going to pay Uncle Clifford’s medical bills?”
“Oh, the government has to pay for that. Why should we pay for it? Uncle Clifford brought it on himself. All those drinks and the French postcards you gave him.”
“They were pictures of Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower, Fran. Surely they didn’t do him any harm.” I fished up another pearl onion. “Another thing, Fran,what about your Social Security retirement benefits? That’s a huge expense for the government. You wouldn’t want to cut that, would you?”
“They can’t start cutting Social Security. Nobody would stand for it.”
“I agree, Fran.” I took another swallow of my martini, which was growing low in the glass. “But if can’t cut these major programs, how is Romney going to pay off the deficit without raising taxes?”
“Oh, he won’t pay it off all at once. Just a little at a time.” She frowned. “Why are you so down on Romney?”
“Well, actually most of these ideas came from Paul Ryan. They’re popular with the strong conservatives, like the Tea Party people. I don’t think that Romney himself is that conservative.”
She looked me in the face. “Why are you always attacking conservatives? What have they done wrong? What about attacking the liberals for a change?”
“Oh, there’s plenty wrong with the liberals, too. All that political correctness business. I agree that the liberals went overboard on that, Fran. But for better or worse, the voters didn’t go for it. And they’re not going for Ryan and Romney’s Medicare plan, at least according to the newspapers.”
She jammed her fork into her meatloaf and clawed off a piece. “You can’t believe everything you read in the newspapers. They make up half their stuff.”
“I grant that the newspapers have their biases, just like everybody else. But Ryan has often said that he wants to put in a voucher system in which the government gives everybody money to buy medical insurance from private insurance companies. That seems to me a huge gift to the insurance companies.”
She shook her head firmly. “I’d trust the insurance companies over the government any day. How come the government couldn’t do anything about all those hurricanes? Whose fault was that?
“You have me there, Fran. So far as I could see, Obama did nothing to stop the last hurricane we had,”
“You see? It just goes to show.”
I blinked. “Goes to show what?”
“What I said in the first place. You can’t trust the government to do anything.”
