According to the Congressional Budget Office, the public would have to pay an extra $20 trillion over the next 75 years (an amount that is approximately equal to 4 times the projected Social Security shortfall) if Representative Ryan’s plan for a Medicare voucher system is adopted.

There may be questions of values here, but most immediately the question is whether we want to take money from low and middle income people and give it to these industries [private insurance and healthcare providers].

Everything immediately grows longer or becomes tangled or adhesive, as if every action carried within it its own prolongation and every phrase left a thread of glue hanging in the air, a thread that can never be cut without something else becoming sticky too. Everything persists and continues on its own, even if you yourself decide to withdraw.

Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow: Dance and Dream

“If I wanted to be cynical, I’d say cuts are just a sideshow, a diversion from the main event. They’ll keep rolling on and on and on, because the simple truth is that wealth is being extracted from society at an ever faster rate. The main event? Deep institutional reform, so our institutions create wealth, instead of merely extracting it. The longer we put it off, fail to do it, or, most vitally, fail to understand that logic, the longer and harder this great stagnation will be.”

Umair Haque