So Paul Ryan releases his budget proposal and the Democrats get hysterical:
1. Our food won’t be the same: “The cuts to domestic spending, if applied across the board, would lead to fewer food inspectors, fewer air-traffic controllers, and so forth. That would mean more delays and cases of food poisoning, and so forth.” (Brad Plumer)
2. It’s savagery: “Over the medium term, of course, it’s a plan to savage the poor while giving big tax breaks to the rich.” (Paul Krugman)
3. Scrooge-esque: “Deficit reduction does not require the Scrooge-like, Gilded-Age policies that the Ryan plan embodies.” (Center for Responsible Budget Politics)
4. The end of democracy: “The amendment would require a two-thirds majority to raise taxes, giving a right-wing minority veto power over any tax increases. Goodbye, majority rule. This is all extreme and irresponsible stuff. The president knows it.” (E. J. Dionne)
5. Designed to fight Occupy Wall Street: “It cuts taxes for those at the top, asking the middle class to pick up the tab. It’s a budget designed to benefit the top 1 percent at everyone else’s expense.” (Daniel J. Weiss)
6. Less vacations: “If the Ryan budget somehow became reality then you might have to give up on college and avoid air travel — assuming you survived the food poisoning and killer diseases.” (Jonathan Cohn)
Much more at the link….oh, and how could we forget the always loony, always hateful Debbie Wasserman-Schultz:
Ratcheting up the rhetoric on the eve of Vice President Joe Biden‘s visit to a South Florida senior community, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz today likened Republican Medicare proposals to “a tornado through America’s nursing homes.” …
Said Wasserman Schultz: “The Romney-Ryan budget would be devastating to seniors and older Americans. It is a Republican path to poverty that would pass like a tornado through America’s nursing homes where millions of America’s seniors receive long-term and end-of-life care.”
The Ryan plan — which has no chance of passing the Democrat-controlled Senate — would leave Medicare intact for current recipients and those nearing retirement. But when those who are now 54 and younger reach retirement, the plan would replace the current fee-for-service program with subsidies to purchase insurance.
Does that sound familiar? It should. She used the same line for Ryan’s budget proposal last year:
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) comments on Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget proposal for FY 2012. “Representing a large number of seniors in south Florida, I can tell you that this budget would be devastating for seniors and older Americans. This Republican path to poverty passes like a tornado through America’s nursing homes, where millions of America’s seniors receive long-term and end of life care,” [she] said.
And it was just as untrue last year as it is this year. His budget doesn’t affect ANY current seniors. It won’t affect seniors in nursing homes or anywhere else. Her rhetoric, and those of her cohorts, is just plain ole demagoguery at its worst.
Some conservatives don’t like the plan because it doesn’t cut enough, fast enough. That is a valid complaint. But it does make cuts, some 97 billion in the next fiscal year, and it reduces spending over the long term. While 97 billion is a drop in the bucket, at least it’s a proposal. At least it tries to get us on a path of reduced spending. Yes, I would rather have more cuts in spending up front but if Congress and this Administration were to implement it at least we would be on some kind of path to reduce spending. We are on the opposite trajectory at the moment so this is better than the alternative…that being Obama’s budget:
His budget boldly calls for more than doubling taxes on capital gains and dividends, and extracting more wealth from the very successful people who create private-sector jobs. He offers little reform to a corrupt tax code, and continues to give unelected bureaucrats and federal regulators more power over our individual and corporate lives.
While the Obama budget does project reductions in deficit spending over the next two years, deficits begin to grow again thereafter, largely because the president chooses not to take on the reform of entitlement programs. In the Obama budget’s own words, the government’s fiscal position “gradually deteriorates” beyond 2022.
Compare and contrast:
…the Ryan budget makes some hard choices. More than $5 trillion in spending is cut from the federal budget over 10 years. Power is returned to the states. Market choice and competition are introduced to Medicare. Corporate tax rates are cut to 25 percent from 35 percent to be competitive with other countries. Individual taxes are simplified, and tax brackets reduced from five to two – 10 and 25 percent – by eliminating loopholes and most deductions. Ryan’s tax and regulatory reforms are structured to restore incentives for capital formation, job creation and economic growth. In Ryan’s words, “Our budget returns power to individuals, families and communities … We put our trust in citizens, not government.”
“We put our trust in citizens, not government”
This kind of thinking is badly needed right about now as the Democrats do everything within their power to do the opposite. Punishing those who create jobs is NOT the way to balance a budget. It’s the way to our country’s ruin.
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