GOP Rep. Paul Ryan today
introduces this year's version of the "Austerity For Thee But Not For Me" plan, with all sorts of crazy promises and the elimination of the American social contract with the federal government.
On the critical issues of health security and tax reform, our budget draws a clear distinction between serious reformers and those who stand in the way of the growing bipartisan consensus for principled solutions.
Our budget's Medicare reforms make no changes for those in or near retirement. For those who will retire a decade from now, our plan provides guaranteed coverage options financed by a premium-support payment. And this year, our budget adds even more choices for seniors, including a traditional fee-for-service Medicare option.
We also introduce a competitive-bidding process to determine the growth of government's financial contribution to Medicare. Forcing health plans to compete against each other is the best way to achieve high-quality coverage at the lowest cost, and implementing these reforms in Medicare can have the effect of lowering health-care costs for everyone. This is the key to increasing access and affordability while preventing government debt from threatening the health security of seniors and the economic security of all Americans.
Our budget also spurs economic growth with bold tax reform—eliminating complexity for individuals and families and boosting competitiveness for American job creators. Led by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, our budget consolidates the current six individual income tax brackets into just two brackets of 10% and 25%.
We propose to reduce the corporate tax rate of 35%, which will soon be the highest rate in the developed world, to a much more competitive 25%. Our budget also shifts to a "territorial" tax system to end the practice of hitting businesses with extra taxes when they invest profits earned abroad in jobs and factories here at home.
So, massive revenue loss from income and corporate taxes...in the trillions, mind you...means even larger cuts in social programs, education, health care, infrastructure, and everything else. The plan magically eliminates the national debt by 2050 because "tax cuts will create unprecedented growth." States also get block grants to run basically everything, and
states have to balance their budgets. So unless you believe that 90% of Medicaid dollars are wasted, you can kiss that goodbye too.
Best part about state block grants? The end of the era of red states getting $2 or more for every federal tax dollar they submit. That's the first thing block grants will kill and state politicians know it. They'll get far, far less in block grants and told to make do. For millions of Americans, that means they'll be on their own with no help. The poverty will be massive.
Paul Ryan's austerity plan is going on right now in Britain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Ireland, and many other European countries, which are in or about to enter deep recessions in 2012 with no way out. If Ryan and the GOP get control of the country in November, we'll follow them down the hole into a lost generation of economic disaster. That's a guarantee.
Best part? Ryan claims his plan will eliminate the national debt by 2050.
That's a complete and utter lie.
But the House budget’s entire claim to deficit reduction is built on the foundation of those fantasy revenue levels. Without them, the debt goes up, not down. In fact, with all the House budget’s tax cuts properly accounted for, revenue would average just 15.3 percent of GDP from 2013 through 2022, not 18.3 percent. The result: deficits would never drop below 4.4 percent of GDP, and would rise to more than 5 percent of GDP by 2022.
Key word there:
Never. We would never reach a balanced budget under the Ryan Plan. Let me reiterate: We would never reach a balanced budget under the Ryan Plan, let alone run enough of a surplus to pay off the national debt. When Ryan says he would reduce the national debt to zero by 2050, he is lying to you. He is lying to you because he thinks you are a gullible moron and will not question his numbers.
The national debt, measured as a share of GDP, would never decline, surpassing 80 percent by 2014, and 90 percent by 2022. By comparison, President Barack Obama’s budget proposal, released in February, would stabilize the debt by 2015, and bring it down to 76 percent by 2022.
So not only is he lying, but his plan is actually worse than the President's plan, which is supposedly going to bankrupt us with too high of a debt to GDP ratio.
New overdue tag: Austerity Stupidity.
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