Ryan-Romney Budget Gives Away the Store

Posted on by HumboldtDems

Congressman Paul Ryan has finally endorsed Mitt Romney as his preferred candidate for president.   Yeah, like we didn’t expect that coming.  Thus, it should be no surprise that both Romney and Ryan support the same key budget tenets — massive cuts to programs critical to its economic security of middle class Americans, and ending Medicare for our nation’s seniors as we’ve known it and paid into throughout our working careers — all so they can transform our nation’s wealth into outrageous tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.

There budget plans would

  • Turn Medicare into a voucher program to help pay for massive tax cuts to the wealthiest.
  • Turn Medicaid into a block grant program that can easily be underfunded or diverted by states for other purposes.
  • Protect tax loopholes that benefit oil companies and hedge fund managers.
  • Repeal Health Care Reform, re-opening the do-nut hole, re-instituting pre-existing conditions and increasing health care costs to every American by thousands of dollars for not just medical premiums and services but in increased taxes as well.
  • Make arbitrary cuts to programs essential to middle-class families like education, environment and clean energy.
  • Provide large new tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, above and beyond any permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts
  • Not balance the budget and in fact, would increase our national debt.

But beyond the deep cuts in programs, those cuts mean some serious job losses in the public sector.  That means the Republicans intend to dump more Americans into the unemployment roles and simultaneously slash the safety net that would have assisted them.

Romney has said he is on the same page as Ryan – even “applauding” Ryan’s budget – so America’s seniors and the middle class need to take note of what this budget means to and for them.  Here’s a press release from the Obama/Biden Campaign that compares the two GOP budgets.  Is that where you think American should be going?  Do those represent your priorities for America?  If not, then get of your duff and get out there and fight for our ticket!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Obama/Biden Campaign

THE RYAN-ROMNEY BUDGET PROMOTES GIVEAWAYS TO OIL COMPANIES, WALL STREET, 
AND THE WEALTHIEST WHILE SENIORS AND THE MIDDLE CLASS FOOT THE BILL

“Governor Romney has said he is on the same page as Congressman Ryan, so America’s seniors and the middle class should take note of what that means for them. The Romney and Ryan budgets would turn Medicare into a voucher program, increase health care costs to seniors by thousands of dollars and make arbitrary cuts to programs essential to middle class families like education and clean energy, all while giving massive tax cuts to the wealthiest and protecting taxpayer subsidies to oil companies and hedge fund managers. And by repealing health care reform and cutting over $1 trillion from Medicaid, Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan would deny coverage to approximately 50 million Americans who currently have it, including low-income children, pregnant women, nursing home patients and people with disabilities. We can’t do the same thing and expect a different result – Governor Romney has embraced a carbon copy of the policies that led to the economic crisis.” — Ben LaBolt, Press Secretary

ROMNEY-RYAN BUDGET: TAX CUTS FOR THE TOP, DEEP CUTS FOR THE MIDDLE-CLASS

The budget released today by Rep. Paul Ryan mirrors the radical policies supported by Gov. Mitt Romney: massive tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, privatize Medicare and deep, arbitrary cuts that hurt middle-class families.

Ryan’s Path to Poverty

Romney Budget Plan
Mutual Admiration 
  • “Look at what he put out! This is a great development. … This tracks perfectly with the House budget.” — Ryan on Romney’s budget,  Washington Post, 11/4/11
  • “When Paul Ryan put his plan out in the first place, I said it was a major advance, a big step forward, we were on the same page.”  — Romney on Ryan’s Medicare plan New York Times, 2/1/12
Privatizes Medicare 
  • YES. Turns Medicare into a voucher program that shifts costs to seniors.
  • YES. Similar voucher plans make seniors pay $6,350 more a year.
  • Charges seniors more for prescription drugs and preventive care.
  • Increases payments to insurance companies by $100 billion and repeals other reforms, accelerating the exhaustion of the Medicare trust fund to 2016.
Breaks Bipartisan Deal on Spending 
  • YES. Deep cuts to domestic spending would break the bipartisan agreement.
  • Cuts would cost jobs and hurt average Americans, slashing investments in education, clean energy and scientific and medical research.
  • YES. Proposes similarly deep cuts to discretionary spending that would also break the bipartisan deal.
  • Holding true to his promise to balance the budget would require deeper cuts to all domestic spending than the House plan.
Huge Tax Cuts for the Wealthy 
  • YES. Extends all of the Bush tax cuts.
  • Provides trillions more in tax rate cuts weighted towards the rich without specifying how to pay for them.
  • YES. Extends all of the Bush tax cuts.
  • Provides $5 trillion in tax cuts weighted towards the wealthy without specifying how to pay for them.
Deep Cuts in Medicaid and Healthcare Coverage 
  • YES. Repeals health reform and cuts over $1 trillion from Medicaid over the decade.
  • Deny coverage to up to 60 million people, including low-income children, pregnant women, nursing home patients, and people with disabilities.
  • YES. Repeals health reform and cuts over $1 trillion from Medicaid over the decade.
  • Deny coverage to up to 53 million people, including low-income children, pregnant women, nursing home patients, and people with disabilities.
Repeals Key Protections in Wall Street Reform 
  • YES. Rolls back key protections in Wall Street Reform designed to prevent future financial crises and end the era of “too big to fail.”
  • YES. Repeals all of Wall Street Reform,  even though it creates no budget  savings.

End note:  Absent from the Obama/Biden press release above was the restoration of the sequestration cuts that were made to military spending which takes up, by far, the largest portion of spending in the federal budget.  It is time to put our money “where our mouth is” and stop putting money into more and more weapons of destruction and involving our Country in one armed conflict after another.  Maybe we should mandate that every Republican is required to watch that new “Bully” film and