Saturday, April, 5th, 2014, 11:21 am
It is abundantly clear to literate Americans that an anti-poverty
program’s primary function is to reduce poverty, so when Paul Ryan
released a stinging condemnation of the nation’s anti-poverty programs
it was obvious that he is either pro-poverty or had a solution to create
good jobs, raise the minimum wage, and alleviate the need for
anti-poverty measures. Ryan and Republicans’ thirty-year failed approach
to create jobs is giving the rich and corporations a 15% tax cut that
will enable more and more corporations to pay nothing in taxes and bring
the wealthy’s tax liability closer to zero but do absolutely nothing to
reduce poverty or create one job. Since there is nothing whatsoever in
Ryan’s latest budget to create jobs, one can conclude he is pro-poverty
and according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) that
took account of the cuts in his latest budget proposal, the lion’s share
of cuts come from anti-poverty programs and will increase the level of
poverty in this country to levels unseen since the Great Depression.
However, like the Great Depression, the wealthiest Americans will
increase their riches through greater tax cuts and the rest of the
population will either fall from the middle class or sink deeper into
dire poverty.
In a
preview
of a forthcoming report, the CBPP notes that out of $4.8 trillion in
non-defense cuts (Ryan increases defense spending by well over
three-quarters if a trillion dollars) 69% of Ryan’s cuts ($3.3 trillion)
come from programs that serve people precariously close to or already
living in poverty. These lop-sided cuts put an end to any bovine
excrement that Ryan is even remotely concerned for the plight of the
poor and belies his newfound designation as the compassionate
conservative face of the Republican Party. In the past Ryan’s budgets
were inaptly named Path to Prosperity, but the latest offering’s apropos
title is the Republican Party’s pro-poverty manifesto. The
devastatingly barbaric cuts to anti-poverty programs target every
low-income demographic and will increase suffering due to lack of
medical care, food, education, and specifically targets seniors,
children, the disabled, and poverty-wage working families. If nothing
else, Ryan deserves credit for completeness for making sure every person
close to or already in poverty will fall deeper into destitution, and
expands the number of Americans living in poverty.
The largest cuts in Ryan’s budget are for healthcare related programs
and it makes the Republican goal very clear; keep the greatest number
of Americans in ill-health and without any kind of healthcare coverage
whatsoever. Ryan cuts at least $2.7 trillion from Medicaid and subsidies
that assist low and moderate-income Americans afford private healthcare
insurance that he will use as a partial payment for tax cuts for the
rich. Ryan’s plan reveals the Republicans’ goal is preventing at the
very least 40 million low and moderate-income Americans, a little over 1
in 8, from having any healthcare coverage within ten years. Ryan claims
his budget directly helps people living in poverty and builds great
opportunities for the poor to become wealthy, but he clearly intends on
providing the poor with an opportunity to die from lack of basic medical
care while they wait for “trickle-down” wealth to reach them.
If the pro-poverty manifesto
fails to kill off 40 million Americans through disease and ill-health,
Ryan’s vaunted compassionate conservatism and regard for the plight of
the poor will precipitate their slow starvation. His budget cuts food
stamps (SNAP) by $137 billion and is more than the program-ending
Draconian food stamp cuts the House passed last September. According to
the Congressional budget Office, Ryan’s intent is to force 3.8 million
hungry seniors, Veterans, children, and families earning poverty wages
completely off the program in 2014 alone. The food stamp program then
faces much deeper cuts when Republicans convert SNAP to block grants
that allow Republican-controlled states to use the money as they see
fit; more likely than not for tax cuts for the rich and corporations as
has been their wont.
To make sure Americans living in poverty will never have the
opportunity to increase their chances of finding jobs that pay more than
poverty wages, Ryan cuts $125 billion from Pell Grants that help low
income students afford higher education by cutting eligibility,
repealing mandatory Pell Grant funding, and freezing grant amounts even
though they barely cover a third of the cost to attend college. It is
noteworthy that Paul Ryan benefitted from federal government assistance
to attend college, so he knows the importance of help to earn a college
education that his Ayn Rand sensibilities will not allow for other
Americans because he does hate “takers.”
Ryan’s budget also cuts an additional $385 billion from many
mandatory programs for low-income Americans such as Supplemental
Security Income for the elderly and disabled, the school lunch and child
nutrition programs, and the Earned Income and Child Tax Credits for
lower and middle-income working families. As if to add insult to
injury, sickness, hunger, lack of education, and hungry school children,
Ryan adds $250 billion in cuts on top of the discretionary caps
included in the Republican sequester. None of the devastating cuts
include privatizing Medicare that will burden seniors with added
healthcare costs or the cuts to pensions Republicans yearn for to force
middle-class Americans into poverty when they retire.
All of Ryan’s cuts will increase the suffering and misery of
Americans already struggling in poverty, but one aspect the CPBB did not
account for were the millions of jobs cuts to anti-poverty programs
will destroy. Just cuts to food stamps alone will decimate millions of
jobs as every dollar spent for food stamps returns at least $1.70 in
economic benefits that create and sustain jobs. Republicans have not
been averse to killing millions of jobs with budget cuts over the past
three years and there is no reason to believe they will despair over
killing a few million more, especially as a value-added bonus of forcing
more Americans into poverty.
It is true that Ryan’s budget will never get past the Senate or
President Obama’s veto pen, and reports are that several teabaggers and
Republicans in the House will not vote for Ryan’s budget because it is
far too generous and does not completely eliminate anti-poverty programs
or tax revenue to starve the federal government into bankruptcy and
foreclosure. However, Republicans are sending the American people a very
strong message that they are pro-poverty and have every intent to
follow Ryan’s recommendation to eliminate anti-poverty programs and use
the funds to increase defense spending and partially fund tax cuts for
the rich.
Republicans and Democrats just passed a two-year budget that gave
Ryan greater spending cuts than any of his previous budgets, but it did
not kill enough jobs, starve enough already hungry Americans, or prevent
millions from access to medical care as Ryan’s newest pro-poverty
manifesto. The tragedy of Ryan’s proposal is that Republican supporters
across the country heralded the budget as another path to prosperity
that if enacted will transform the entire nation into what the Southern
United States has been for five years; a third world nation inhabited by
a population living in poverty. However, millions and millions of
Republican voters should rejoice that Ryan’s budget included protection
for a few hundred wealthy families from sick and hungry peasants by a
military that just got a three-quarters-of-a-trillion dollar budget
increase.
Paul Ryan’s Budget Would Increase The Number Of People in Poverty was written by Rmuse for PoliticusUSA.
© PoliticusUSA, Sat, Apr 5th, 2014 — All Rights Reserved
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