![“The basic elements of Ryan’s plan are this: The tax code would be collapsed into two rates, with the top rate dropping to 25 percent, but eliminating unspecified tax deductions would keep tax revenues at the current level, as set by the Bush tax cuts. Medicare would remain untouched for those 55 years old and older, but those under would be given vouchers at a capped rate. Given that the Medicare savings would not begin to take effect for more than a decade, that taxes would stay level (at best), and that military spending would increase, Ryan would achieve his short-term deficit reduction by focusing overwhelmingly on programs targeted to the poor (which account for about a fifth of the federal budget, but absorb 62 percent of Ryan’s cuts over the next decade). The budget repeals Obamacare, thereby uninsuring some 30 million Americans about to become insured. It would then take insurance away from another 14 to 27 million people, by cutting Medicaid and children’s health-insurance funding.
This is not a moderate plan. As Robert Greenstein, a liberal budget analyst, summed up the proposal, ‘It would likely produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history.’ And yet, Ryan has managed to sell it as something admirable, and something else entirely: a deficit-reduction plan. This is very clever. The centrist political Establishment, heavily represented among business leaders and the political media, considers it almost self-evident that the budget deficit (and not, say, mass unemployment or climate change) represents the singular policy threat of our time, and that bipartisan cooperation offers the sole avenue to address it. By casting his program as a solution to the debt crisis, by frequently conceding that Republicans as well as Democrats had failed in the past, and by inveighing against ‘demagoguery,’ Ryan has presented himself as the acceptable Republican suitor the moderates had been longing for.
Whether Ryan’s plan even is a ‘deficit-reduction plan’ is highly debatable. Ryan promises to eliminate trillions of dollars’ worth of tax deductions, but won’t identify which ones. He proposes to sharply reduce government spending that isn’t defense, Medicare (for the next decade, anyway), or Social Security, but much of that reduction is unspecified, and when Obama named some possible casualties, Ryan complained that those hypotheticals weren’t necessarily in his plan. Ryan is specific about two policies: massive cuts to income-tax rates, and very large cuts to government programs that aid the poor and medically vulnerable. You could call all this a ‘deficit-reduction plan,’ but it would be more accurate to call it ‘a plan to cut tax rates and spending on the poor and sick.’ Aside from a handful of exasperated commentators, like Paul Krugman, nobody does.” - Jonathan Chait: The Legendary Paul Ryan
[Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images/Jesse Lenz]](https://web.archive.org/web/20120501053636im_/http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3aw2nmbBc1qzr73ro1_250.jpg)
“The basic elements of Ryan’s plan are this: The tax code would be collapsed into two rates, with the top rate dropping to 25 percent, but eliminating unspecified tax deductions would keep tax revenues at the current level, as set by the Bush tax cuts. Medicare would remain untouched for those 55 years old and older, but those under would be given vouchers at a capped rate. Given that the Medicare savings would not begin to take effect for more than a decade, that taxes would stay level (at best), and that military spending would increase, Ryan would achieve his short-term deficit reduction by focusing overwhelmingly on programs targeted to the poor (which account for about a fifth of the federal budget, but absorb 62 percent of Ryan’s cuts over the next decade). The budget repeals Obamacare, thereby uninsuring some 30 million Americans about to become insured. It would then take insurance away from another 14 to 27 million people, by cutting Medicaid and children’s health-insurance funding.
This is not a moderate plan. As Robert Greenstein, a liberal budget analyst, summed up the proposal, ‘It would likely produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history.’ And yet, Ryan has managed to sell it as something admirable, and something else entirely: a deficit-reduction plan. This is very clever. The centrist political Establishment, heavily represented among business leaders and the political media, considers it almost self-evident that the budget deficit (and not, say, mass unemployment or climate change) represents the singular policy threat of our time, and that bipartisan cooperation offers the sole avenue to address it. By casting his program as a solution to the debt crisis, by frequently conceding that Republicans as well as Democrats had failed in the past, and by inveighing against ‘demagoguery,’ Ryan has presented himself as the acceptable Republican suitor the moderates had been longing for.
Whether Ryan’s plan even is a ‘deficit-reduction plan’ is highly debatable. Ryan promises to eliminate trillions of dollars’ worth of tax deductions, but won’t identify which ones. He proposes to sharply reduce government spending that isn’t defense, Medicare (for the next decade, anyway), or Social Security, but much of that reduction is unspecified, and when Obama named some possible casualties, Ryan complained that those hypotheticals weren’t necessarily in his plan. Ryan is specific about two policies: massive cuts to income-tax rates, and very large cuts to government programs that aid the poor and medically vulnerable. You could call all this a ‘deficit-reduction plan,’ but it would be more accurate to call it ‘a plan to cut tax rates and spending on the poor and sick.’ Aside from a handful of exasperated commentators, like Paul Krugman, nobody does.” - Jonathan Chait: The Legendary Paul Ryan
[Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images/Jesse Lenz]
![“The House budget for fiscal year 2013 tasks several congressional committees to ‘reduce lower‐priority spending’ to avert military cuts that will otherwise take place in January 2013 due to the debt deal agreed to last summer. Based on these committees’ decisions, it’s safe to assume that children are considered a ‘lower priority’ than the many other places House leadership could have found necessary savings.
The House Agriculture Committee, for example, could have found savings by reforming subsidies to wealthy farmers. The House Ways and Means Committee could have found its savings from closing tax loopholes for oil companies and hedge fund managers. But both committees decided that services for our most vulnerable children should be first and foremost on the chopping block. […]
These cuts are not only immoral—they are also bad economic policy. Child poverty alone costs our economy upwards of $500 billion a year in lost productivity, increased health care costs, and expenditures in the criminal justice system. Poor childhood nutrition leads to a host of negative consequences including increased instance of chronic diseases, lower educational achievement, and a less-skilled workforce of the future—all of which will ultimately undermine our economic competitiveness.
In contrast, higher taxes on the wealthy would not harm economic growth.” - Melissa Boteach](https://web.archive.org/web/20120501053636im_/http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m35xhhrNpl1qzr73ro1_250.png)
