On Monday, the House Democrats’ political apparatus booted up a new robocall offensive in 20 battleground districts, a campaign targeting GOP House members for votes cast to reform and sustain the sickly Medicare program.

Roll Call printed an excerpt from the call script used in just one congressman’s district:

“Everyone agrees we must cut spending and tighten our belt, but Barletta has made the wrong choice,” the automated call in his district says. “Ending Medicare to pay for subsidies for Big Oil making huge profits or tax breaks for the ultra rich! That’s not right.”

True, DCCC, the claims are not right, but even that Freudian admission in the call script is an understatement.

Despite the passionate delivery the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s robotic message defies logic and lacks evidence. In fact, one would have to go back to Yul Brynner’s performance as the Gunslinger in the 1973 sci-fi classic Westworld to witness a machine – political or otherwise – go haywire in a more eccentric fashion.

Moving beyond the conspiratorial implication that Medicare funding and oil subsidies sit on either end of an absurd budgetary seesaw, the notion that Republicans have passed any legislation that would end Medicare has been debunked by PolitiFact.com and FactCheck.org.

In April, PolitiFact determined the Dems’ claim to be a “Pants on Fire”-variety exaggeration, writing that “in reality, people 55 and older won’t see changes under the Ryan plan…”

In March, FactCheck.org wrote “DCCC’s Deceptive Drive,” in which the claims were meticulously dissected and found to be… truth-deficient.

The DCCC gives the impression that current Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries are in jeopardy of losing their benefits if Republicans get their way. That’s not the case, based on the evidence it provided us.

The view of the GOP representatives caught in the crosshairs of the DCCC smear is quite different. Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.) believes that the GOP plan is the way to save Medicare for future generations.

In an op-ed published in Sunday’s Las Vegas Review-Journal and reprinted at RedCounty.com, Heck writes that by its mixture of reforms to entitlement programs and cuts to the overall budget, the Republican proposal will provide a more stable fiscal base for Medicare in the future.

“The Republican budget proposal addresses the debt problem by returning government spending to responsible levels, strengthening programs bound for bankruptcy, and eliminating tax loopholes,” Heck writes.

###

photo credit: flickr