Eye Recommend -- The House Budget Disaster

Representative Tom Price (R-Georgia), Chairman of the House Budget Committee 

announces the House budget proposal

THE HOUSE BUDGET DISASTER, by The New York Times Editorial Board --
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/opinion/the-house-budget-disaster.html?_r=0

what eye thynk:  Read it and weep. (Any underlines are mine.)

"If the budget resolution released on Tuesday by House Republicans is a road map to a 'Stronger America,' as its title proclaims, it's hard to imagine what the path to a diminished America would look like.

The plan's deep cuts land squarely on the people who most need help: the poor and the working class.  The plan also would turn Medicare into a system of unspecified subsidies to buy private insurance by the time Americans who are now 56 years old become eligible.  And it would strip 16.4 million people of health insurance by repealing the Affordable Care Act (the umpteenth attempt by Republicans to do so since the law was enacted in 2010.)

House Republicans would increase defense financing by bolstering a contingency fund that is not subject to existing budget caps, while insisting on adherence to caps or even deeper cuts to nondefense spending on education, the environment, law enforcement, medical research and other so-called discretionary programs.  At the same time, the plan proposes deep cuts to 'mandatory' nondefense spending, which includes Medicaid, federal pensions, food stamps, farm supports and tax credits for the working poor...

...Over all, at least two-thirds of the $5 trillion in cuts over 10 years would come from programs that focus on low-and modest-income Americans, even though such programs account for less than one-fourth of all federal program costs."

-----> Those numbers cannot be emphasized enough:  Programs in place to help the poor and middle class make up just 25 percent of the federal budget.  But House Republicans believe those programs alone should absorb 66 percent of their proposed budget cuts. <-----

"Republicans say the cuts are necessary to reduce the deficit...but annual budget deficits have (already) fallen steeply during the Obama years.  Going forward, there is both a need and an opportunity for the government to spend in ways that create jobs..."

(Remember when jobs were important to the GOP?)

"...and lay a foundation for future growth, say, by investing in education, science and infratructure."

(Remember when education and science were also important to the GOP?  Yeah, me either.) 

"The House Republican plan ignores the most sensible, equitable cuts.

For example, it doesn't propose to reduce the deficit by closing tax loopholes that drain the budget of more than $1 trillion a year and that overwhelmingly benefit the highest-income households, including the special low tax rates on investment income."

I would love to see the secret GOP formula that explains why a plumber should pay a higher tax rate than the guy who invests in a plumbing company.

"The absence of tax increases in the presence of deep spending cuts is a recipe for increasing both poverty and inequality...

...House Republicans are sticking to their tired themes of spending cuts, no matter the need or consequences, and tax cuts above all."

 As a matter of fact, one of the Senate budget proposals would reduce the tax on investment income and capital gains income, (do I need to point out that would mean the wealthy--not the middle class, not the poor) to zero.

I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that the GOP "We Care About Income Inequality" campaign slogan for 2016 is nothing more than a paper tiger.

Or maybe we're simply been misinterpreting that slogan.  What they really mean is "We  Care About  Love Income Inequality (So Much That We Want, Not Only to Protect It, but to See It Grow!)"