The Republican budget proposal released by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin would give millionaires and political campaign contributors huge tax breaks while punishing seniors and working families. Ryan's extremist plan would decimate Medicare and Medicaid and terminate the Affordable Care Act, undermining the economic security of America's struggling middle class.
The Republican plan isn't based on the principle of shared sacrifice. There's no fairness. The idea that we solve big problems in this country by working together and sharing the burden can't be found. The super-rich and big corporations aren't asked to pitch in. Instead the Republicans manipulate the tax code so the rich get even richer. This budget blueprint changes the rules and reshapes this country in a breathtakingly dangerous way.
The Republican budget attacks every single one of us. Health care programs that everyone in this country depends on would be eviscerated. For example, we all depend on Medicare and expect that it will be there for us. What happens if it is not? What will people really do? Many of us have friends and relatives who receive Medicaid benefits, including millions in nursing homes. What happens when states slash benefits and dump people from the program? And the new health care law, the Affordable Care Act, has already made a huge difference in the lives of millions in its first year - and ultimately will directly touch 200 million of us. Affordable health care we can count on is a key to economic security.
The GOP's budget breaks the fundamental promise of this country: That if you work hard and play by the rules, you can take care of your family and retire with dignity and peace of mind.
How do the Republicans intend to reduce the deficit? They want seniors and hard-working families to pay more for health care and get less coverage.
The Republicans want to:
- End Medicare as we know it: The Republican budget eliminates traditional Medicare. It trades seniors' guaranteed health care benefits for vouchers that go directly to private insurance companies, risking their health and financial security when care is denied or premiums are raised. Under Ryan's plan, the value of the vouchers would rise more slowly than private premiums, forcing seniors to make up the difference and fall farther behind with each passing year. Those who can't afford it will be out of luck. The enrollment age would rise from 65 to 67.
- Give mammoth tax cuts to millionaires and big corporations. At a time when income disparities are as big as ever, the Republicans would widen the gap. This year U.S. corporations have taken the biggest profits in the nation's history and corporate taxes are at the lowest levels in generations (some corporations don't pay taxes at all!). But the Republicans want to cut another $1.5 trillion from the tax obligations of the wealthiest individuals and companies. This is a bonanza for corporate lobbyists and campaign contributors.
- Rip apart America's safety net. The Republicans want to convert Medicaid into state block grants that will shift costs to states, lower payments to hospitals and doctors, cost three million jobs, and impoverish seniors and their families by shifting to them the burden of paying for nursing homes and other essential long-term care services.
- Put insurance companies back in charge of our care. The plan would allow insurance companies to jack up our rates and deny our care whenever they want. The Republicans would do away with cost savings and consumer protections under the Affordable Care Act, like the ban on denying care to people with pre-existing conditions, the big savings on drug costs for seniors and new caps on how much of each premium dollar goes to overhead and profits. Repealing the ACA would keep 32 million uninsured people from gaining quality, affordable health coverage.
- Help Wall Street-run health insurance companies make record-breaking profits and pay their CEOs outrageous sums to deny people the care they paid for and need. The Ryan plan would hand over nearly 65 million seniors to the private health insurance industry. Private insurers selling Medicare Advantage plans already cost 11 percent more than the conventional Medicare program, the nation's most efficient health plan. There's no reason to think they could perform any more efficiently with 100 percent of Medicare beneficiaries.
The Ryan plan is an assault on the middle class that shifts billions of dollars to the big corporations and richest Americans. It robs future generations of the opportunity to do better than their parents and to share in the prosperity of a great nation. While the corporate lobbyists and campaign donors reap the benefits, the Republican plan makes the American Dream unachievable for the vast majority of people in this country.
Join the fight for these programs today. Click here to call your Member of Congress and tell them to vote NO on the Republican's extremist budget.
Cross posted on the NOW!Blog here
Follow Ethan Rome on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/@HCAN
Let's make no mistake, this is war on the working poor... sigh
To DTOM 1776 - "Progressives and liberals wrongly believe that everyone should have the same outcome." And why shouldn't people have the same outcome or the potential for the same outcome, unfettered by unfair practices and selfish people and policies?
speech Franklin Roosevelt gave during the Great Depression.
They want to be able to make MONEY. More money than God could ever imagine. And YOU are in their way. You puny, self important, ignorant American public. They don't care about you. They don't even respect you. They tell you what to believe, and you believe them. They tell you they plan to do A and then do B and you STILL vote for them screaming you need more of A.
They dumb down the schools so you don't even know how to think anymore and you say "No child left behind!". They wrap themselves in the flag while outing covert CIA agents and you say "Fair Game"! They wave the Bible while supporting forced abortions in 3rd world countries and you say "More tax cuts for big business!". They take away any chance of you ever having affordable healthcare and you scream "I am in charge of my own healthcare" (And yes you are. You no longer have any unless you are very rich!)
If Americans do not wake up and start to actually look at what these people are doing then they will ruin this country and blame you for it.
Do we opt for money— or do we opt for ethical moral Christian treatment of our people?
Indeed, it is written that the love of money is the root of all evil.
It's plain to see at this point who loves the money. Unfortunately they are also the ones who are running our country.
The writer says "The GOP's budget breaks the fundamental promise of this country: That if you work hard and play by the rules, you can take care of your family and retire with dignity and peace of mind."
This is absolutely and patently WRONG. The fundamental "promise" of this system of governance is LIBERTY. LIBERTY to pursue whatever station in life you so desire. LIBERTY to strive to ascend, descend, or be stationary to any place or situation YOU decide. Not RESULTS. Not OUTCOME.
Progressives and liberals wrongly believe that everyone should have the same outcome. They additionally believe that only a centralized authoritative bureaucracy is the way to achieve equal outcomes. They fail to recognize the LIBERTY and FREEDOM destroying results of their failed policies.
dont bother responding to me. you are completely corrupt.
Curious post. Are you not certain that you meant to post to some other thread? I'm asking because your writing didn't address any of my contentions. If you have a different concept of LIBERTY, as contained, provided, promoted, and protected within our Foundational philosophy....please share it with us.
What conservatives and tea party folks don't understand is that freedom isn't enough without purpose. Indeed, the nature of freedom requires you to become an architect of action among other free people, So, while Individuals are free, we must join together collectively to create the common destiny which gives freedom meaning. So, we're not saying everyone should have the same outcomes, but rather, that each of us is equal BECAUSE WE ARE FREE, and only through the collective strength of that true equality can the greatness of America be rebuilt.
You folks, on the other hand, subscribe to a morally bankrupt, almost nihilistic view of freedom that has no meaning at all. Instead, you use it as an empty rallying cry for an extremist agenda that would actually destroy the freedom you claim to revere.
Freedom is the ability to take morally responsible action. Everything else is just tyranny by another name whereby even "freedom" can be confused with slavery.
I understand that you wish to ascribe to our Founding, and thereby our Founders, certain philosophical goals...Thereby supporting your contention that we should act as a "collective" body to achieve certain progressive ends. However, the evidence of history isn't on your side.
We never have to guess what the Founders "would" have agreed. We have the actual words they spoke. Much better than guessing. The concepts of "take care of your family", "retire with dignity and peace of mind" are entirely subjective in property. Everyone defines these differently. There is no empirical "threshold of obtainment" to these concepts. Our Founders where NEVER concerned about outcomes of effort. Only in the ability to STRIVE for outcomes without hindrance from collective groups (government) or other individuals. If individuals wished to voluntarily form groups, for the betterment of another group of people, or an ideal, then that was certainly allowed and actually encouraged.
Many, many people throughout our history have "worked hard and played by the rules," without obtaining subjective goals. In our governing construct of individual LIBERTY, there is no guarantee of any outcomes.
LIBERTY, is an unalienable right. Granted not by any people, or collection of people. It does not need any human definition, or action to "give it meaning." It is granted (endowed--flows naturally) from our creator. If "we" are the granters of the "meaning of freedom" then we can certainly 'change' it's meaning any time we want to. Then it is not LIBERTY anymore.
1770s through to today - same song and dance: the wealthy control the wealth, and are happy to periodically make wealth scarce in order to pickup good deals on assets.
We don't need tea leaves to read our future. It doesn't look pretty.