Nothing has Changed: Romney/Ryan plan a continuation of Republicans' class war
The Free Press, Mankato, MN
August 28, 2012
August 28, 2012
By Tom Maertens
The non-partisan Tax Policy Center recently released its analysis of Paul Ryan’s budget plan, concluding the plan is mathematically impossible and would add $4.6 trillion to the deficit in its first decade.
David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s budget director, said Ryan’s plan — which Mitt Romney called “marvelous” — “is devoid of credible math.”
Ryan’s plan is a tax giveaway bonanza; it would extend the Bush tax cuts, reduce income-tax rates by an additional 20 percent, cut corporate taxes 10 percent, end capital gains taxes, eliminate the estate tax, abolish the AMT and kill taxes on dividends and interest.
Ryan claims those tax cuts won’t increase the deficit by a dime, because they would be paid for by ending tax breaks and loopholes, and by cutting spending. This is magical thinking.
Romney/Ryan have no real prospect of eliminating the three biggest tax breaks: for mortgage interest, state and local taxes paid and charitable contributions. They’re too popular.
What Ryan’s plan really does is cut the social safety net to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy. It would end Medicare as we know it — a Republican goal for 50 years — and cut $1.4 trillion from Medicaid starting in 2013.
That would throw 14 million off the rolls and into the ER for medical care. Repealing Obamacare would cut 11 million more people off Medicaid and add $109 billion to the debt.
Ryan has long favored privatizing Social Security, as well. Paul Krugman, a Nobel economist, has characterized the Ryan budget as “surely the most fraudulent budget in American history” and called Ryan a fraud who doesn’t care at all about fiscal responsibility.
As Michael Kinsley wrote in the LA Times, “For 30 years, Republicans have demanded a balanced budget without ever producing one, even on paper.” Ryan continues the double-talk.
He voted for all Bush’s budget-busting programs. His tax cuts, his two wars, the massive prescription drug benefit — none of them paid for — his $120 billion “stimulus” in 2002, his $800 billion TARP bailout, NCLB, Bush’s 2008 auto bailout, Bush’s $168 billion fiscal “stimulus” in 2008, and even the “bridge to nowhere.”
Ryan also voted for a (failed) $715 billion Republican stimulus package while criticizing Obama’s $787 billion package as socialist.
After voting to run up the debt, Ryan tried to run out on the bill by voting in favor of default rather than raising the debt ceiling.
So, Ryan is not just another conservative impostor, but a charlatan. Now he is blaming Obama for a budget crisis he helped Bush create. Indeed, according to The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the current deficits are largely the result of those Bush-era policies and the recession.
Astonishingly, he is advocating more of the same policies — more tax cuts for the wealthy, more deregulation and more military spending and corporate welfare.
The Republicans’ real goal is to redistribute money to the wealthy who bankroll their party. The Tax Policy Center found that the Ryan plan would cut taxes in half on the richest 1 percent — who already enjoy the lowest tax rates in 80 years — giving them 117 percent of the plan’s total tax cuts, while raising taxes for 95 percent of the population.
Economist Dave Johnson calculated that the Ryan plan would raise taxes on those making between $50,000 to $100,000 by $1,300; it raises taxes on those who make between $100,000 to $200,000 by $2,600; it cuts taxes on those who make between $500,000 and $1 million by $35,000; and it cuts taxes on those who make over a million dollars by $285,000.
Romney himself noted last January that, under Ryan’s plan, “I’d have paid no taxes in the last two years” — despite making more than $20 million per year.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said that Ryan’s budget would likely produce “the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that Ryan’s plan would reduce food and nutrition support for more than 20 million children, knock almost 300,000 off the federal school lunch program and cut at least 300,000 from the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That prompted the nation’s Catholic bishops to say that Ryan’s budget “will hurt hungry children, poor families, vulnerable seniors.”
The reality is that the Romney/Ryan plan is a continuation of the Republicans’ class war, cutting safety net programs to give more tax cuts to the wealthy, using a well-funded campaign of distortion and deception.
The non-partisan Tax Policy Center recently released its analysis of Paul Ryan’s budget plan, concluding the plan is mathematically impossible and would add $4.6 trillion to the deficit in its first decade.
David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s budget director, said Ryan’s plan — which Mitt Romney called “marvelous” — “is devoid of credible math.”
Ryan’s plan is a tax giveaway bonanza; it would extend the Bush tax cuts, reduce income-tax rates by an additional 20 percent, cut corporate taxes 10 percent, end capital gains taxes, eliminate the estate tax, abolish the AMT and kill taxes on dividends and interest.
Ryan claims those tax cuts won’t increase the deficit by a dime, because they would be paid for by ending tax breaks and loopholes, and by cutting spending. This is magical thinking.
Romney/Ryan have no real prospect of eliminating the three biggest tax breaks: for mortgage interest, state and local taxes paid and charitable contributions. They’re too popular.
What Ryan’s plan really does is cut the social safety net to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy. It would end Medicare as we know it — a Republican goal for 50 years — and cut $1.4 trillion from Medicaid starting in 2013.
That would throw 14 million off the rolls and into the ER for medical care. Repealing Obamacare would cut 11 million more people off Medicaid and add $109 billion to the debt.
Ryan has long favored privatizing Social Security, as well. Paul Krugman, a Nobel economist, has characterized the Ryan budget as “surely the most fraudulent budget in American history” and called Ryan a fraud who doesn’t care at all about fiscal responsibility.
As Michael Kinsley wrote in the LA Times, “For 30 years, Republicans have demanded a balanced budget without ever producing one, even on paper.” Ryan continues the double-talk.
He voted for all Bush’s budget-busting programs. His tax cuts, his two wars, the massive prescription drug benefit — none of them paid for — his $120 billion “stimulus” in 2002, his $800 billion TARP bailout, NCLB, Bush’s 2008 auto bailout, Bush’s $168 billion fiscal “stimulus” in 2008, and even the “bridge to nowhere.”
Ryan also voted for a (failed) $715 billion Republican stimulus package while criticizing Obama’s $787 billion package as socialist.
After voting to run up the debt, Ryan tried to run out on the bill by voting in favor of default rather than raising the debt ceiling.
So, Ryan is not just another conservative impostor, but a charlatan. Now he is blaming Obama for a budget crisis he helped Bush create. Indeed, according to The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the current deficits are largely the result of those Bush-era policies and the recession.
Astonishingly, he is advocating more of the same policies — more tax cuts for the wealthy, more deregulation and more military spending and corporate welfare.
The Republicans’ real goal is to redistribute money to the wealthy who bankroll their party. The Tax Policy Center found that the Ryan plan would cut taxes in half on the richest 1 percent — who already enjoy the lowest tax rates in 80 years — giving them 117 percent of the plan’s total tax cuts, while raising taxes for 95 percent of the population.
Economist Dave Johnson calculated that the Ryan plan would raise taxes on those making between $50,000 to $100,000 by $1,300; it raises taxes on those who make between $100,000 to $200,000 by $2,600; it cuts taxes on those who make between $500,000 and $1 million by $35,000; and it cuts taxes on those who make over a million dollars by $285,000.
Romney himself noted last January that, under Ryan’s plan, “I’d have paid no taxes in the last two years” — despite making more than $20 million per year.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said that Ryan’s budget would likely produce “the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that Ryan’s plan would reduce food and nutrition support for more than 20 million children, knock almost 300,000 off the federal school lunch program and cut at least 300,000 from the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That prompted the nation’s Catholic bishops to say that Ryan’s budget “will hurt hungry children, poor families, vulnerable seniors.”
The reality is that the Romney/Ryan plan is a continuation of the Republicans’ class war, cutting safety net programs to give more tax cuts to the wealthy, using a well-funded campaign of distortion and deception.
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1 Comments:
I am not sure the Romney/Ryan plan will work. What would help more people belive in Democrats is if they would explain the financial status of California, Illinois (specifically Chicago), Detroit, St. Louis and other states and cities that have been under Democratic control for years.
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