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General News    H2'ed 3/31/12

Paul Ryan: Privatize Medicare, eliminate Medicaid and food stamps

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Message Gregory Patin

In negotiations with House Republicans last August, the White House agreed to significant cuts in discretionary spending for the 2012 and 2013 fiscal years in return for an increase in the federal debt ceiling. The Ryan budget resolution reneges on that agreement by failing to adhere to the spending levels set in that deal.

 

While Democrats accepted the budget cuts endorsed by Obama last year, Republicans refused to do so, which raises the possibility of a new legislative deadlock over the adoption of appropriations bills for fiscal year 2013. That could lead to a partial shutdown of the federal government October 1, just prior to the presidential and congressional elections.

 

According to a study by the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) , Ryan's proposal calls for $5.3 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade. 62 percent of the $5.3 trillion in spending cuts come from "programs that serve people of limited means." Many low-income working families would actually see an increase in their tax burdens under the Ryan plan.

 

The Ryan plan would also raise the age of eligibility for Medicare from 65 to 67, and end Medicare as a federal entitlement for all those now younger than 55. Anyone who turns 65 after 2023 would be relegated to buying private health insurance with a government grant that would be capped, shifting costs to the individual.

 

Another CBPP analysis found the budget provides for $800 billion in cuts for Medicaid, $1.6 trillion from repealing the expansion of Medicaid and subsidies for low- and moderate-income people, $134 billion in cuts from food stamps, and $463 billion from other programs for low-income individuals and families, including an estimated $166 billion from Pell Grants for low-income college students. (See slideshow for a detailed look at the CBPP's and other statistics).

 

An analysis by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC) finds that people earning more than $1 million a year would receive $265,000 apiece in new tax cuts, on average, on top of the $129,000 they would receive from the Ryan budget's extension of President Bush's tax cuts.

 

Part of the savings would be used to reduce the federal deficit, but the bulk of them would go to reward the wealthy with new tax breaks, including abolition of the estate tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax, making the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, and lowering the top income tax rate from the present 35 percent to 25 percent.

 

According to the New York Times , White House officials said the budget plan would cut 200,000 children from Head Start, deny food stamps or WIC food commodities to 1.8 million infants, children and pregnant or nursing women, cut transportation financing by up to $50 billion, and cut unspecified billions from federal employee pensions.

 

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Gregory Patin is a free-lance writer residing in Madison, WI. He earned a BA in political science from the University of Wisconsin - Madison and a MS in IT management from Colorado Tech. He is politically independent and not affiliated with either (more...)
 
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