The Ohio GOP may soon push "breakthrough" legislation requiring the official execution of Medicare recipients, according to a fictional source within the party.  Secret computer-based lotteries will decide who will be eliminated from the state's Medicare rolls, he said in confidence, but family notification would be withheld until after the shootings have taken place. 

The GOP now has total control of the Ohio legislature and governor's office.  The unnamed "source" explained that soaring budget deficits threaten the party's efforts to eliminate the Ohio estate tax, a tariff that could lower the income of some of the state's multi-millionaires by as much as several thousand dollars. 

"There are simply too many Ohioans turning 65 to allow this to continue," the source said.  "Clearly those who have not accumulated at least $2 million by the time they become seniors have no right to continue to live, let alone to impinge on those who, by the force of their efforts and the grace of God, have become acceptably rich."

The executions would be contracted out to Halliburton, Xe Services (formerly Blackwater) and other proven military performers.  He said the party may sell a limited edition of elite "Thin the Grey Herd" hunting licenses to further enhance revenue. 

A "humane" faction within the party has argued that the elders should be eliminated by mandatory lethal injection.  But GOP "budget hawks" insist that bullets are cheaper.  "They're going to die anyway," said our source.  "The Second Amendment provides for a better way to go."

The source also laid out further programs aimed at driving down Ohio's massive deficits: 

1)   A new nuclear plant, funded with federal loans, will spread radiation over the entire state.  "It's well-known that older people are more susceptible to radiation than people who are still working," said the source.  "We anticipate a 10% drop in the average lifespan of the state's elders once the new reactor begins operation in downtown Cleveland." 

2)   By contrast, the GOP will hold the line against $400 million offered by the federal government to restore passenger rail service between Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati.  "The auto lobby tells us that an attractive number of people who die in traffic accidents are elderly.  Each fatality will save the state many thousands in Medicare costs.  On the other hand, older people who ride on trains tend to make it home safely.  So send the money to California," said the source.

3)   The GOP plans to eliminate all state-owned parks by selling them for $1 each to the counties, which will turn them over to oil, coal and gas drilling corporations.  "Republican-owned fossil fuel companies are very very good at lowering air quality," the source told us.  "Medicare recipients are reliably susceptible to asthma, one of the better by-products of burning fossil fuels in tandem with eliminating pollution-restricting vegetation.  We are certain drilling and paving these otherwise worthless parks will directly benefit some of our biggest contributors while trimming the Medicare rolls."

4)  Our source adds that the unborn will not be spared the budget-cutting discipline.  All pregnant Ohio women will be required to place loudspeakers on their abdomens programmed to tell their fetuses that Medicare is being phased out and that none of them should expect to collect.  Since the GOP plans "beating heart" legislation to ban certain abortions, the tape will inform those conceived during rape or incest that even if one or both their parents is in prison, welfare payments are not to be expected either, and that the state has many good bridges and culverts suitable for night lodgings. 

When asked if these programs might be unpopular, the source laughed.  "You're sill living in a ballot-based reality," he told us.  "Ohio's voting now takes place on electronic machines, which gives Governor-for-Life John Kasich the power to take about ten minutes every election night to adjust the results the way God intended."

According to the source, the Medicare elimination program has already begun.  But the GOP has awaited the addition of an African-American to the otherwise all-white-male governor's cabinet so that he could make the public announcement. 

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"Thomas Paine's" PASSIONS OF THE POTSMOKING PATRIOTS is also a satire.