Self-proclaimed “NeverTrump” Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin is once again displaying her blatant hypocrisy in her latest op-ed attacking the GOP amidst the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations.
Rubin railed against Republicans in her April 24 drivel, for daring to propose spending cuts and adding work requirements to Medicaid and food stamps. President Biden is currently in a standoff with Republicans over increasing the already enormously high debt limit. But Rubin’s virtue-signaling position on the GOP proposal is hypocritical coming from the same former so-called “conservative” columnist who penned columns for the Post on the importance of reining in out-of-control spending and reforming social safety net programs. Talk about talking out of both sides of one’s mouth.
“As Biden says, show me your budget and I’ll tell you your values. For Republicans, that means making the poor sicker and more food insecure while fattening the wallets of the super rich,” Rubin decried in her analysis of the debt limit bill.
But during the 2012 presidential campaign —when the national debt was in the midst of passing the $16 trillion mark— Rubin heaped praise on the former presidential candidate Mitt Romney and former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan for trying to take on entitlement reform.
Rubin even referred to some of former President Barack Obama’s health care policies as “one ponzi scheme to hide another ponzi scheme” in an April 23, 2012 column. She even castigated Obama for not taking the lead on entitlement reform at the time: “Obama’s refusal to lead on entitlement reform is one of Mitt Romney’s better arguments for his presidency. Obama won’t lead; Romney has already set out Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security reform.” Did Rubin forget that Biden was also Obama’s vice president at the time?
But fast-forward to 2023 and Rubin is singing an entirely different tune. Rubin condemned GOP efforts to rein in spending as “draconian cuts.” But in 2012, Rubin lambasted Obama for refusing to cut spending and reform entitlement programs. “Taken together, the trustees’ and [Government Accountability Office] reports remind us of one of Obama’s most significant domestic failing: his lack of will to address our entitlement programs that are central to a real reduction in our national debt.”
The Washington Post columnist has also apparently changed her views on Medicaid. Rubin authored a 2013 article headlined: “Spending on Medicaid doesn’t actually help the poor.''Now, she’s propagandizing that “we can see Republicans are taking away funds for food and medical coverage for poor people and sending the money to tax cheats.”
Rubin also harangued the GOP for their insistence on work requirements for Medicaid as “rotten policy that will not encourage more people to work.”
But Rubin herself has a history of signaling support for the work requirements she now decries in her 2023 propaganda. In another 2012 column, Rubin criticized Obama: “By gutting the work requirements in President Clinton’s signature welfare reform law, President Obama is admitting his economic policies have failed.” In the same article, Rubin approvingly cited former Senator Orrin Hatch’s (R-UT) condemnation of efforts to evade welfare work requirements.
But Rubin’s hypocrisy doesn’t end there.
She also whined that Republicans are seeking to strip funding from the IRS that can be used to go after “tax cheats”. Her desire to empower the IRS seems strange coming from the woman who wrote extensively about how the IRS abuses its power.
Which Jennifer Rubin should Americans listen to at this point?
Conservatives are under attack. Contact The Washington Post at (202)334-6000 and demand it distance itself from Rubin’s blatant hypocrisy on spending cuts.
