At least two-thirds of $5 trillion in cuts in Republican budget affect low/modest income Americans

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Senate Democrats @SenateDems · 48m 48 minutes ago
Republican budget’s deep cuts "land squarely on the people who most need help: the poor and the working class." http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/opi


___ If the budget resolution released on Tuesday by House Republicans is a road
map to a “Stronger America,” as its title proclaims, it’s hard to imagine what the path to a diminished America would look like.

The plan’s deep cuts land squarely on the people who most need help: the poor and the working class. The plan also would turn Medicare into a system of unspecified subsidies to buy private insurance by the time Americans who are now 56 years old become eligible. And it would strip 16.4 million people of health insurance by repealing the Affordable Care Act (the umpteenth attempt by Republicans to do so since the law was enacted in 2010).

House Republicans would increase defense financing by bolstering a contingency fund that is not subject to existing budget caps, while insisting on adherence to caps or even deeper cuts to nondefense spending on education, the environment, law enforcement, medical research and other so-called discretionary programs. At the same time, the plan proposes deep cuts to “mandatory” nondefense spending, which includes Medicaid, federal pensions, food stamps, farm supports and tax credits for the working poor. The details of these cuts are vague, but the Medicaid cuts alone would inevitably fall on millions of children in low-income families and millions of older people (mostly women) in nursing homes, groups that are the program’s main beneficiaries.

Over all, at least two-thirds of the $5 trillion in cuts over 10 years would come from programs that focus on low- and modest-income Americans, even though such programs account for less than one-fourth of all federal program costs...

House Republicans are sticking to their tired themes of spending cuts, no matter the need or consequences, and tax cuts above all. Senate Republicans, whose budget resolution is scheduled to be unveiled Wednesday, are not expected to challenge the House approach in any major way.

read: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/opinion/the-house-budget-disaster.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0


Republican Budget Would Deal a Blow to Middle Class

House Republicans on Tuesday laid out a 2016 spending blueprint that would slash Medicare, repeal the Affordable Care Act, junk a Medicaid expansion which helped millions get affordable insurance, gut a Wall Street reform law and freeze Pell grants that help students afford college. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, said he expects a Senate budget – due to be detailed on Wednesday – to mirror the House panel’s attack on the middle class and seniors while showering millionaires with more tax breaks.

“The House budget is the Robin Hood principal in reverse. It takes from the poor and working families and gives it to the rich and multi-nationals corporations. It is a budget proposal that must be defeated. At a time when so many people are struggling and we have grotesque levels of wealth inequality, this budget cuts nutrition programs for kids, Medicare for seniors and education opportunities for young people. And then to add insult to injury, this budget plans offers huge tax breaks to the rich and large corporations,” Sanders said. “I will be offering a strong series of amendments in committee and on the Senate floor to change these disastrous proposals.”

At hearings later this week of the Senate budget panel, Sanders said he and Democrats on the committee intend to offer amendments spelling out their priorities, including providing jobs by rebuilding roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects, raising the minimum wage, improving overtime pay, addressing pay equity for women workers, preventing cuts to Social Security and Medicare, making college education affordable and reforming the tax system.

read: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/republican-budget-would-deal-a-blow-to-middle-class


Turn Kentucky Blue @UniteBlueKY · 1h 1 hour ago
House Republican budget whacks food stamps and Medicaid http://huff.to/1GS5xMK

In his budget blueprint, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), who took over for Ryan as chairman of the House Budget Committee this year, seeks to balance federal spending over 10 years by cutting assistance to the poor while boosting the defense budget...

Price's budget would cut food stamps and Medicaid in two ways. As Ryan unsuccessfully proposed in previous years' budgets, the proposal released Tuesday would turn funding for Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, informally known as food stamps, into "block grants." Both Price and Ryan modeled their proposals on the welfare reform of the 1990s, which used block-grant funding to prevent federal spending on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program -- the program most closely associated with the term "welfare" -- from rising beyond a fixed amount.

The result has been that TANF spending stayed flat even as millions more Americans fell into poverty and would previously have been eligible for benefits. Food stamp spending, meanwhile, surged to $78 billion last year, thanks largely to the Great Recession throwing millions of people out of work after 2007. The Price budget would prevent another surge in SNAP spending and leave it up to states to decide which people are and aren't eligible for benefits. Currently, food stamps are available to anyone poor enough to qualify, which amounts to 46 million people.

The second way in which the Price proposal cuts SNAP and Medicaid is through numerical reductions in both programs' budgets. Though the budget summary doesn't specify exactly how much to cut food stamps, it calls for $165 billion less in mandatory spending outside of health and retirement programs -- a category in which SNAP is the largest program -- over the next 10 years. Ryan's budget last year called for SNAP cuts of $137 billion, or 18 percent...

Even if Congress approves the proposal, its policy changes would not become law; instead, the congressional committees overseeing various aspects of federal spending would begin the process of trying to meet the budget's spending targets. The Republican Senate will be an obstacle to the House budget, however, since GOP senators are moving forward with their own blueprint that does not similarly eliminate the military spending caps. And even if House and Senate Republicans eventually do agree, there is the additional obstacle of President Barack Obama's certain veto of any legislation that undoes his signature policy accomplishment, the Affordable Care Act.


Romy TNT @RomyUSA
#TNTweeters President Obama headed to Cleveland to slam GOP budget plan http://ow.ly/KtRGO

[madokie]

1. Yup they are evil

mofo's. People who have sold their soul to the ever loving love of money

[Romeo.lima333]

2. anyone need more reasons to vote in 2016

[Thinkingabout]

4. Elections has consequences, and not only vote in 2016 but every election.

[Romeo.lima333]

6. yes! they are all important

[Thinkingabout]

3. I just wonder when those who votes against their best interest will wake up and

realize the GOP are using them on the abortion issue to continue to get their undying vote and the GOP does not want this issue to change since this continues to get their vote. Maybe they should let the GOP know there are other issues which needs attention. Tunnel vision by the voters is allowing the GOP to run wild without any responsibility to the voters needs.

[global1]

5. So We're Reading About This Here - Why The Hell Aren't Senate & House Dems.....

yelling this out on the airwaves and letting the American People know what the Repugs are doing to them?

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