Zombie economics

Paul Krugman has a humorous take on republican talking points for the upcoming primary season.  He claims that old zombie (i.e. dead, but refusing to stay buried) ideas have taken over the GOP.  The three main pets of the right are the need to cut Social Security, the failure of Obamacare and the continuing relevancy of supply side or voodoo economics.  All three of these ideas play well to the only people who matter in the early part of the primary season; the billionaires who will be funding the leading challengers for the presidential nomination.
 In reality, raising the retirement age and/or the age of medicare eligibility will save very little money and cause moderate hardship for those who have done manual labor all their lives.   Many advocates actually advocate expanding SS benefits to make up for the lack of retirement savings or pensions for the 99%.   The easiest way to do this is to eliminate the cap on the earnings from which the SS tax is collected.  Unfortunately, this idea is anathema to the 1%.
    Obamacare has lowered the number of uninsured Americans, stalled the seemingly inexorable rise of health insurance premiums and been implemented during a rise in unemployment not seen since the last Clinton was president.  Of course you would never know this to listen to Bush, Rubio, Walker, et. al.  To survive the Koch brothers/ Sheldon Adelson primary they have to argue the opposite on each of the above points.  Fortunately for them, Faux News parrots those talking points so most of the republican primary electorate believes this nonsense.
   Finally, supply side economics, better known as "tax cuts for the rich will provide trickle down prosperity for the masses" absolutely refuses to die.  For the 1% this is an article of faith a reality based republican striving for the presidency ignores at his peril.  30 plus years of tilting the playing field in favor of the rich has left the middle class in tatters and the rest of the country scrambling to avoid poverty, but more relief for the Kochs and Waltons must surely be the cure. 
    How these fantasies play out when real voters step into the booth next year will tell us a lot about how most of us will live and die during the next decade.  I have faith the 80% of Americans who are amenable to reason and fact based policy will see through this charade.  The alternative is chilling to think about.