Legendary singer Pat Boone tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview that seniors should not fear Paul Ryan’s plan to help save Medicare and Medicaid as much as they should fear President Obama’s alternative.
“The way we’re going with Obama we cannot afford it. We can’t go on giving you the kind of benefits you want, or are used to, because the money is gone,” charged Boone in an exclusive interview this week.
“We’re wading terribly in debt and unless somebody like Romney and whoever he chooses — now it’s Ryan — step in and strengthen, and reform all of the entitlements they’re doomed. They’re already down the drain.”
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Boone said he prayed that Romney would choose the 42-year-old Wisconsin congressman to be his running mate. Ryan gained national prominence for proposing sweeping budget reforms to tackle the nation’s burgeoning debt and struggling entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid as chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee.
“I’ve been hoping and praying for this very choice before he was really considered in the top three, four or five,” confided Boone, who is a spokesman for the 60 Plus Association, which is the nation’s leading conservative seniors’ organization. “I kept wanting to yell, ‘Paul Ryan, Paul Ryan” because he, I believe, is the quintessential perfect choice for Romney.”
Describing Ryan as a “young Reagan out of heartland America,” Boone called him the perfect rebuttal to the Democratic Party’s platform committee endorsement of same-sex marriage on Aug. 11 as well as President Obama’s “recent evolutionary thought process in favoring same-sex marriage.”
Boone said the choice is indicative of Romney’s superb management skills. “It proves why he was successful in business, why he was successful in the Olympics,” observed Boone. “He is the type of executive who screens applicants, weighs the skills and pluses and minuses, and can choose the best man for the job — not necessarily the one those polls might initially approve, or that others might try to tout him toward.”
Founded 19 years ago as an alternative to AARP, 60 Plus has 7 million members. Recently the association sponsored a “60 Plus Healthcare Freedom Bus Tour,” with Boone and group chairman Jim Martin speaking about issues critical to this year’s election in Florida and other states.
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“Paul Ryan is the only man in Congress who has come up with a workable plan, and it’s not that it’s necessarily perfect,” Boone explained. “Romney has already said, ‘look I’ve got my own plan but he wouldn’t have chosen Paul Ryan if there weren’t many similarities and agreements in their ideas about what needs to be done.”
He accuses President Obama and David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Obama’s re-election campaign, with twisting the facts to scare seniors about Paul Ryan.
“Though he stresses continually that nobody like 60-65 on up is going to be affected negatively and that all will be taken care of, and that the idea is to save Medicare, Axelrod makes these audacious false claims that Ryan’s plan will do away with Medicare,” asserted Boone. “You can’t keep giving kids candy when there’s nothing left in the jar, and we need some simple analogies like that. Seniors are worried about preserving Medicaid and Medicare and changing everything. When, if they don’t change it, it’s doomed. It’s already doomed.”
Boone urges seniors to look at the election as if they were hiring a financial planner — because in a very real sense, that’s what they will be doing come election day.
“I would say to any senior: ‘let’s say you have $150,000 in your IRA and in your retirement . . . You have a choice between two men to manage that retirement for you, to make sure that it meets your needs, that are retirement, not going somewhere else, but your retirement,’” according to Boone. “’Would you trust an Obama or would you trust a Mitt Romney or a Paul Ryan to manage your $150,000?’”
For Boone, the choice is clear. “I think the only sensible choice would be a man who’s run businesses, who’s successful, who knows finance and the economy,” he said. “If you think that an Obama with never having had a business experience, never signed a payroll check, or really had any more than a political job — if you think he’s the one to manage your finances, to make sure that it takes care of your needs, then vote for him.”
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Taking that analogy a step further, Boone said the same principles apply to choosing the best candidate to sit at the helm of the nation’s economy.
“Which one do you want to run our nation’s economy? One that is already tripled the national debt to $16 trillion? Or one who took a failed and failing Olympics and turned it into a profitable enterprise when it seemed impossible? Come on folks. Think rationally. Think reasonably. The choice now is starkly clear,” Boone added.
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