Thom Hartmann - Romney, Ryan and the Destruction of the Middle Class
by Thom Hartmann,posted Aug 13 2012 3:18PM
The GOP ticket is set – Mitt Romney will be running for president alongside Republican Congressman from Wisconsin – Paul Ryan. Ryan is the powerful House Budget Committee Chairman who this year authored the most radical budget to ever pass the House of Representatives. Newt Gingrich referred to the Ryan Budget as “right-wing social engineering” – and it’s an appropriate description, since it decimates the poor – with more than $3 trillion in cuts to programs for low-income Americans.
The Ryan Budget slashes the Medicaid program on which so many working families depend on – cutting it by one-third over the next ten years. It ends Medicare as we know it, raising the eligibility age and turning guaranteed health insurance for seniors into a voucher program that will result in seniors paying more than double what they currently pay in out-of-pocket costs. It screws college students with huge cuts to Pell Grants that will affect more than one million Americans.
Yet despite all these cuts, Ryan’s budget doesn’t balance itself for several decades. That’s because it also includes massive tax cuts for the rich – giving the average tax cuts of a quarter-million dollars each year – while raising taxes on all Americans who make less than $30,000 a year. And it includes preserving billions in taxpayer subsidies to transnational oil corporations. According to the Economic Policy Institute – the Ryan Budget will kill more than 8 million jobs over the next several years – taking the unemployment rate to nearly 12% by 2014.
Over the next few months, some political pundits will comment on how “bold” or “courageous” Paul Ryan is for taking on sacred cows like "entitlement" programs. But there’s nothing “bold” or “courageous” about giving more tax cuts to the rich and cutting off more benefits for the poor. That’s exactly what’s been going on for thirty years in America, and Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney want to finish the job that Reagan started – the complete destruction of the middle class.
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