Jill Stein Quotes
The specific trigger for me was when the President [Barack Obama] put Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block. Why I got into the race - it just seemed unconscionable that the Democrats were leading the charge.
Stein, Jill. Interview with Chris Cuomo. CNN Green Party Town Hall, CNN, 17 Aug. 2016.
This true statement hurt Reagan somewhat but not enough to defeat him. At the time, only a small percentage of Americans had any experiences yet with what became one of the most popular programs in American history. Reagan, once in office never repeated any of his early anti-Medicare statements and ironically, in the 8 years of the Reagan Presidency, Medicare became extremely popular.
With entitlement programs, Congress and the Administration have very little control over the annual expenditures because once someone is legally entitled to a benefit, the government must pay it. It is not a matter of discretion but an obligation.
The reason this quotation is noteworthy is the reality that Medicare is the largest Federal Government program that there is. It is not only funded by the Government, but Government employees actually operate it from making the policies to paying the tens of millions of bills to doctors and hospitals. The protester who created the sign, like the overwhelming majority of Tea Party enthusiasts are opposed to big government and especially to government involvement in any health care operations. Obamacare was very controversial and most Tea Party enthusiasts were lobbying heavily against the Government “taking over” the American health care system. Medicare is one of the most popular Federal programs in American history and many people who were opposed to Federal health program management and were ignorant of the fact that Medicare was operated by the Government, were expressing their concern. The sign did not seem to distress any of the thousands of Tea Party followers in the audience, but the main takeaway was that there were many American who just assumed that anything that was run well and they liked could not be run by the government.
Jill Ellen Stein is an American physician, activist, and former political candidate. She was the Green Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 and 2016 elections and the Green-Rainbow Party's candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and 2010. During her campaigns for President, she campaigned on the theme of a Green New Deal which included a number of reforms to address climate change, income inequality as well as civil and political rights reform. In 2012, Stein was on the ballot in 37 states and received 469,501 votes (0.36% of the popular vote). In 2016, she was on the ballot in 45 states and received 1,457,216 votes and 1.07% of the popular vote.
