After Huge Give Away to Wealthy, Republicans Target Medicare and Social Security

Republicans celebrating the $1.5 trillion tax cut.

While it is very difficult to outdo Donald Trump when it comes to lying incessantly, Paul Ryan and other Republicans are trying hard to meet he Trump standard of dishonesty by blaming Social Security and Medicare for the ballooning national debt conveniently forgetting the $1.5 trillion give away  to the obscenely wealthy and huge corporations that they enacted only a few months ago.  How these despicable individuals have the gall to claim that they stand for "Christian values" when their agenda to slash the social safety net is the antithesis of Christ's gospel message.  A piece in the Los Angeles Times looks at the lies, deceit and desire to harm average Americans being pushed by Paul Ryan - who hypocritically claims to be a "devout Catholic" - and similar despicable liars.  If you believe Ryan and "conservative" economists, I have some swamp land to sell to you.  Here are article excerpts:

One would have thought that after saddling the U.S. economy with a tax cut costing $1.5 trillion over 10 years, conservatives and their patrons in corporate America would soft-pedal the usual attacks on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

One would be wrong.

Recently, the drumbeats for cuts in social insurance benefits have been sounding louder. As is traditional, the call for cutbacks is placed in the context of concern about rising federal deficits. Just two weeks ago, five economists and thinkers at the conservative Hoover Institution evoked the "debt crisis" in the pages of the Washington Post.

"To address the debt problem, Congress must reform and restrain the growth of entitlement programs and adopt further pro-growth tax and regulatory policies," wrote the Hooverites, Michael J. Boskin, John H. Cochrane, John F. Cogan, George P. Shultz and John B. Taylor. As for the tax cut bill enacted in December, the sages said not to worry: They called it "a good first step, as it sharply increases the incentive to invest and grow businesses, which will increase incomes." [T]he Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget . . . reckon that the cuts could cost as much as $1.7 trillion over a decade, net of any economic gains it might engender. The Hoover fellows aren't alone in calling for cutting social programs, effectively to pay for tax cuts that go overwhelmingly to corporations and the wealthy. We've documented how Republicans such as House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida started calling for benefit cuts even as the tax bill was making its way through Congress. For the record, the Congressional Budget Office projects that Social Security will rise from an average share of 4.9% of gross domestic product now to an average of 5.5% over the next 10 years. Medicare and Medicaid together will rise from 5.4% now to an average of 6.3% in the same period. To place these figures in context, the CBO also expects GDP to nearly double in that time period, to $29.8 trillion. The tax cuts, by the way, will help push the federal deficit over $1 trillion next year, according to the CBO, which makes clear that they won't pay for themselves. "The tax cuts passed last year actually added an amount to America's long-run fiscal challenge that is roughly the same size as the preexisting shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare," wrote Martin Neil Baily, Jason Furman, Alan B. Krueger, Laura D'Andrea Tyson and Janet L. Yellen. "It is dishonest to single out entitlements for blame….The primary reason the deficit in coming years will now be higher than had been expected is the reduction in tax revenue from last year's tax cuts, not an increase in spending." As is invariably the case, the brief against "entitlements" is peppered with misconceptions and outright untruths. The biggest scam related to the tax cuts is the assertion that they'll provide an "incentive to invest and grow businesses," as the Hoover fellows wrote. The CBO projects that the tax act will increase real GDP by an average of 0.7% and nonfarm employment by an average of 1.1 million jobs a year through 2028, but says those effects are front-loaded and will fade as the decade wears on. The evidence thus far is that the shareholder class will receive gluttonous wedges of the pie, while working stiffs will get crumbs. According to a study by the progressive group Americans for Tax Fairness, Fortune 500 corporations will pocket a total annual tax cut of more than $57 billion a year. Those companies have announced wage increases and employee bonuses totaling about $5.7 billion, and stock buybacks of nearly $201 billion.
Indications that businesses of any size will use their tax cuts to make capital investments are hard to find.

The politicians unsheathing their paring knives for Social Security and Medicare undoubtedly are hoping that Americans' memories are short — that when they claim that it's social programs like these that are driving the deficit, no one will recall that the single biggest driver of red ink is that tax cut delivered to the very members of society who needed help the least.