House GOP Budget Departs from Reality

The House Republicans have passed a proposed budget that departs from both economic and political reality.   Like everything the House Republicans do, the budget demonstrates that the GOP is incompetent at governing and that the only concern is pandering to the lunatic party base.  The budget continues the GOP reverse Robin Hood agenda by slashing programs that help low- and middle-income people, and cutting taxes on those with high incomes, capital gains, and multinational corporations.  This policy of harming the poor and less fortunate is applauded by the Christofascists in the party base that underscore that greed and hatred of others are what it means to be a conservative Christian in today's America.  Here are excepts from a Washington Post column:

The policies put forth in this document suggest that America’s main problem is that the poor have too much and the wealthy, too little. The budget plan “corrects” this perceived imbalance by deeply cutting programs that help low- and middle-income people, and cutting taxes on those with high incomes, capital gains, multinational corporations and “pass through” business income.

Programs that provide affordable health coverage for the middle class (Obamacare, which they repeal) and the poor (Medicaid, which is “block granted”) face large spending cuts. Future elderly persons do not escape unscathed, either, as Medicare is “voucherized” beginning in 2024. The budget includes more than $1 trillion in unspecified cuts that would appear to fall on nutritional support for the poor and tax credits for low-income, working families.

These cuts are inevitable in the following sense. The budget plan purports to balance spending and tax revenue in 10 years. Meanwhile, the Republican caucus will not raise any tax revenue, though it does, as I’ll show in a moment, propose tax cuts (or at least such cuts are implicit in the plan). The one area where the Republicans boost spending is defense.

What’s left to cut? All the low- and middle-income programs noted so far, along with “non-defense discretionary” spending: the annual appropriations for many education and training programs, research, infrastructure, and investments in less advantaged kids.

Though cuts in top tax rates are largely unspecified — Republican budget writers have learned over the years to leave out specifics — the budget does include cuts in taxes on capital gains and stock dividends (through the repeal of Obamacare), along with cuts for business income and the foreign earnings of multinational corporations.

The only way to get there [to balance] — and we’ve seen this in all the previous House budgets written by Paul Ryan — is the magic asterisk that assumes extra revenue comes from somewhere (i.e., somewhere other than higher tax rates): Don’t ask, they won’t tell. 

Based on demographics alone, the plan departs from reality:The share of elderly Americans is expected to rise from about 15 to about 20 percent over the next 20 years. According to economist Larry Summers, about a third of the federal budget is spent on those above age 65.

I don’t believe you could find majoritarian support for this sort of a budget in America. In fact, I doubt you’ll see much support for it even among partisans on Capitol Hill. We’ve already seen Senate Republicans, particularly those running for office in swing states, expressing discomfort with the non-reality of the plan.

With the GOP clowns in Congress, the last thing we need is a Republican in the White House.