Paul Ryan Looks at the Federal Budget and sees it as welfare. Obama's Recovery and Reinvestment Act to create jobs, Healthcare, Medicare, the Departmental overhead of the government are all Welfare. Tax Cuts for Billionaires and subsidies to oil companies however are an investment in jobs creation. If you are a worker and you ain't got nothing you got nothing to lose.
Paul Ryan's cuts to the Federal Budget would indeed reduce the deficit and make the government smaller. Its essentially the same policy as ignoring climate change. Its one of those things where you can just do nothing and the problem will take care of itself. People are the problem. Get rid of all the people. No Problem.
19.63 % of the Federal Budget is repayment of the fully funded Social Security Trust Fund which we all had money taken out of our paychecks to pay for and from which the Republicans borrowed to give a decade of Bush Tax Cuts to the rich. Now the Republicans don't want to repay their debt.
18.74% of the Federal Budget funds the Military industrial complex that got us out of the great depression eighty years ago and which has continued to fund without question programs like the trillion dollar F35 which was designed to fight a cold war which no longer exists.
Paul Ryan's budget leaves Defense off the Table and seeks to cut Social Security, Departmental spending and Medicaid with no attention to increasing revenues by cutting the tax breaks for the rich.
16.13% of the Federal Budget funds the Departmental spending the Republicans consider welfare but which corporations would consider overhead. Its the cost to maintain and repair the governments investment in the cost of railroads, airports, roads, bridges, tunnels, water, sewer, communications, energy transmission lines, national parks, environmental protection and the buildings like post offices schools, hospitals, museums, water and sewage treatment plants, power stations, agricultural inspection, food and drug inspection, all the OSHA and other work safety programs, unemployment insurance programs, social service programs, departments of motor vehicles and other necessary services.
$78.7 billion (−1.7%) – Department of Health and Human Services
$72.5 billion (+2.8%) – Department of Transportation
$52.5 billion (+10.3%) – Department of Veterans Affairs
$51.7 billion (+40.9%) – Department of State and Other International Programs
$47.5 billion (+18.5%) – Department of Housing and Urban Development
$46.7 billion (+12.8%) – Department of Education
$42.7 billion (+1.2%) – Department of Homeland Security
$26.3 billion (−0.4%) – Department of Energy
$26.0 billion (+8.8%) – Department of Agriculture
$23.9 billion (−6.3%) – Department of Justice
$18.7 billion (+5.1%) – National Aeronautics and Space Administration
$13.8 billion (+48.4%) – Department of Commerce
$13.3 billion (+4.7%) – Department of Labor
$13.3 billion (+4.7%) – Department of the Treasury
$12.0 billion (+6.2%) – Department of the Interior
$10.5 billion (+34.6%) – Environmental Protection Agency
$9.7 billion (+10.2%) – Social Security Administration
$7.0 billion (+1.4%) – National Science Foundation
$5.1 billion (−3.8%) – Corps of Engineers
$5.0 billion (+100%) – National Infrastructure Bank
$1.1 billion (+22.2%) – Corporation for National and Community Service
$0.7 billion (0.0%) – Small Business Administration
$0.6 billion (−14.3%) – General Services Administration
$19.8 billion (+3.7%) – Other Agencies
$105 billion – Other
12.79% of the Federal budget is for Medicare which provides seniors their healthcare. Cutting this essentially makes people over 65 and those who are sick and disabled expendable. Its Grandma's death panel in spades. Ryan wants to just get rid of Medicare and have the States take responsibility for it with vouchers. If your state decides to cut the vouchers tough luck.
19% of the Federal Budget goes to the banks to pay interest on the debt. Did we charge them interest on their bailout? I don't think so.
12.71% of the Federal Budget goes for everything else.
On May 21, 2008 Ryan introduced H.R. 6110, titled "Roadmap for America's Future Act of 2008".[12] This proposed legislation outlined a plan to deal with entitlement issues. Its stated objectives were to ensure universal access to health insurance; strengthen Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security; lift the debt from future generations; and promote economic growth and job creation in America.[13] The act would have abolished the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 2010.[14] It did not move past committee.[15]
Ryan's roadmap to America's future removes rather than ensures universal access to Health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The idea is essentially to make the government smaller by taking away all its money. This would indeed reduce the deficit. It would also make America look like Sim City after the Nuclear Meltdown Earthquake, Tsunami, Godzilla on a rampage all combined scenario.
On April 1, 2009, Ryan introduced his alternative to the 2010 United States federal budget. This proposed alternative would have eliminated the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, lowered the top tax rate to 25%, introduced an 8.5% value-added consumption tax, and imposed a five-year spending freeze on all discretionary spending.[16] It would also have replaced the Medicare system.[17] Instead, it proposed that starting in 2021, the federal government would pay part of the cost of private medical insurance for individuals turning 65.[17] Ryan's proposed budget would also have allowed taxpayers to opt out of the federal income taxation system with itemized deductions, and instead pay a flat 10 percent of adjusted gross income up to $100,000 and 25 percent on any remaining income.[18] Ryan's proposed budget was heavily criticized by opponents for the lack of concrete numbers.[19] It was ultimately rejected in the house by a vote of 293-137, with 38 Republicans in opposition.[20]
Getting rid of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act would essentially eliminate any chance for economic recovery, recovering from 8.9 % unemployment, preparing ourselves to be competitive in the next century, getting alternative energy, mass transit, and education up and running, and ensure that the entire electorate was mad as hell and thoroughly turned off on government.
Getting rid of medicare would essentially make the elderly and disabled expendable and by sacrificing their lives save some money.
In late January 2010, Ryan released a new version of his "Roadmap."[21] It would give across the board tax cuts by reducing income tax rates; eliminating income taxes on capital gains, dividends, and interest; and abolishing the corporate income tax, the estate tax, and the alternative minimum tax. The plan would privatize a portion of Social Security,[22][23] eliminate the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance,[23] and end traditional Medicare and most of Medicaid.[22][23] The plan would replace these health programs with a system of vouchers whose value would decrease over time.[23]
Paul Ryan's if you ain't got nothing you got nothing to lose plan would simply strip away everything that might by any stretch of the imagination protect workers, oor regulate and impede corporate greed.
Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman took issue with the contention that Ryan's plan would reduce the deficit, alleging that it only considered proposed spending cuts and failed to take into account the tax changes. According to Krugman, Ryan's plan "would raise taxes for 95 percent of the population" but would produce a $4 trillion revenue loss over ten years because of the tax cuts for the rich. Krugman went on to label the proposed spending cuts a "sham" because they depended on making a severe cut in domestic discretionary spending without specifying the programs to be cut, and on "dismantling Medicare as we know it", which is politically unrealistic.[24]
What Krugman doesn't get is that during the Bush administration the Republicans thought they had already spent all the money and were outraged that Obama wasn't prevented from getting anything done by that. Indeed he has very competently managed to turn lemons into lemonade, turned around the auto industry and paid all the necessary bribes, backshish, and extortion necessary to get the country back on the road to recovery. Paul Ryan's budget is designed to plug the loopholes through which Obama has managed to continue to get the country to function.
In response to Krugman, economist and former American Enterprise Institute scholar Ted Gayer was more positive toward the Ryan plan. Gayer agreed that, as written, the plan would cause a $4 trillion revenue shortfall over 10 years. He noted, however, that Ryan had expressed a willingness to consider raising the rates in his tax plan. Gayer concluded that "Ryan’s vision of broad-based tax reform, which essentially would shift us toward a consumption tax, ... makes a useful contribution to this debate."[25]
Ryan's idea of tax reform is a little bit like the proposal to defund the IRS. As far as corporations are concerned if you had no laws you would have no crimes.
Ryan's emphasis on deficit reduction was criticized by One Wisconsin Now, which noted that he had voted for eight consecutive budgets that increased spending by 50 percent and included what the organization called "reckless tax cuts for the rich".[26]