Obama: Paul Ryan Budget is “Thinly Veiled Social Darwinism”
by: Jeff Wartman
http://jeffwartman.com/...
The Republican golden child of the federal budget is Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan. He's the point man for the Republican on nearly every budgetary issue that comes up. So, while Mitt Romney was campaigning around Wisconsin in the GOP primary with Ryan by his side, not longer after his budget was put forth in Congress, it's not surprising that people are taking a second look at Ryan's odd budget.
President Obama got into the mix, calling the Ryan budget "thinly veiled social Darwinism." Of course, he's not alone. Right winger Newt Gingrich himself essentially said the same thing last year when he called the Ryan budget "radical" and would lead to "right wing social engineering."
It's not a good budget for the people that need it:
Ryan's budget increases defense spending, cuts taxes on the rich, and pays for all that -- and for his deficit reduction -- with deep cuts to programs for the poor and to the basic services the federal government carries out. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that 62 percent of Ryan's cuts are to programs for the poor.
Another real problem with Ryan's budget is the ridiculous assumptions it makes about the future. Those assumptions are the basis for the entire budget. Two big
issues:
Ryan's budget assumes that spending of non-entitlement programs will be under 4% of GDP in 2050, but it never actually says how we'll decrease that non-entitlement spending from over 12% of GDP to under 4%, it just says that we will. Perhaps Ryan has a magic wand? Ryan may be counting on huge decreases in defense and infrastructure spending, but if his budget is going to rest on that assumption, he needs to spell out how it will actually be done. You can't just say you want to decrease that spending - you have a lay out a framework to do it.
Secondly, on the tax front, Ryan's budget includes substantial tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans while giving the middle class the tax bill. But again, his budget makes another ridiculous assumption that he budget somehow magically raises tax revenues to 19% of GDP. Where is he getting this stuff? It's not from the Congressional Budget Office. In fact, budget expert Ezra Klein puts the nail in the coffiin of Ryan's budget:
Translated out of CBO-ese, what that means is that CBO hasn’t looked at whether Ryan’s budget will achieve the results Ryan says it will. Rather, it looked at what will happenassuming Ryan’s budget achieves the results that Ryan says it will.
All of the misdirections and assumptions is present to create a smokescreen for Ryan's real motivation: a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the already wealthy. We know he is already
cozy with special interests, but his budget needs to fit the interests of the middle class rather above all else. It fails that test.