Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney make a promise to the 1 percent. (Darren Hauck/Reuters)
The House is back from yet another week of vacation to resume their
assault on the poor.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republicans who control the House are using cuts to food aid, health care and social services like Meals on Wheels to protect the Pentagon from a wave of budget cuts come January.
This is the Ryan budget chugging its way toward floor action later this week, in the form of the
"Sequester Replacement Act" David Waldman explained earlier. That's the replacement budget that reneges on the debt deal agreed to by Congress and the White House last year.
It's the Republicans' vision for the country that would, literally, make the poor go hungry to give the Pentagon more money that it has asked for. It would also eliminate Social Services Block Grants that provide funding for Meals on Wheels, day care for children and disabled adults, adoption assistance, and transportation for the elderly and disabled.
That would be gone, entirely, because Republicans hate old people, children, and adoption. Yes, adoption. Here are some other targets for cuts for the next decade:
- $35.8 billion in food stamps;
- $66 billion from the Affordable Care Act, cutting subsidies for people buying insurance, eliminating the funding to states to set up exchanges, and eliminating the same prevention fund they're gutting to lower student loan interest rates;
- $30 billion from the Dodd-Frank programs to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and authority for the liquidity fund to prevent taxpayer bailouts of too-big-to-fail banks and help to underwater homeowners in refinancing.
That's just a start for Republicans, as AP reporter Andrew Taylor reports. Mitt Romney, who has whole-heartedly embraced this budget,
promises much tougher cuts to domestic programs and an even bigger boost in the Pentagon's budget
if, of course, he's elected and Republicans take the Senate.
This, of course, all to protect big oil and big money from having to pay taxes and to keep military contractors fat and happy. It's the Republican way.