Ryan Budget: Same Stuff, Different Year (Yawn)
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) released the Republican budget plan this past week that can be described best by the famous quote from baseball philosopher Yogi Berra, “Déjà vu all over again.” Yep, it’s the same old tired—uh, we’ll call it stuff—Ryan and the Republicans have been trying to peddle for years.
Ryan focuses on huge cuts to regular people programs like Medicare (through privatization), Medicaid, college loans and food stamps and repeal of the Affordable Care Act and even eliminating pensions for federal workers, among the usual litany of right-wing extremist battle cries. Just as unoriginal is Ryan’s call for cutting corporate taxes and tax rates for the wealthy, along with increasing the tax break for corporations that export America's jobs.
AFGE President J. David Cox Sr. asks:
What’s another term for an insatiable monster hell-bent on savagely devouring everything in its sight? The Ryan Budget.
Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said:
The newest incarnation of the Ryan budget asks seniors to pay more for preventive health services and prescription drugs while again ending the Medicare guarantee. The Ryan budget clearly chooses tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations over health care for millions of working families.
How appropriate Ryan released his budget on April Fools’ Day. The man’s quite a prankster, no?
The Economic Policy Institute said the Ryan budget, if enacted, would decrease GDP by 0.9% and decrease nonfarm payrolls by 1.1 million jobs in fiscal year 2015, relative to the Congressional Budget Office's current-law baseline. The following fiscal year, when Ryan’s cuts to discretionary spending kick in, “The Path to Prosperity” would decrease GDP by 2.5% and cost 3 million jobs.
For those of you who want to delve deeper into the numbers, take a look at this more detailed examination from the Center for American Progress that describes the Ryan Republican budget as:
Built around the tenet that nearly everyone else must sacrifice in order to continue to give billions of dollars in tax breaks to millionaires, big corporations and Big Oil. At every turn, the House Republican budget reveals its vision of an economy and government that only works for the wealthiest individuals and special corporate interests at the cost of everyone else.
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This has been reposted from the AFL-CIO.
