Ryan's new goal post
by digby
This is the GOP's agenda in a nutshell as embodied in the Ryan budget that just passed this morning with a vote of 219 to 205:
The plan by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan would cut more than $5 trillion over the coming decade to reach balance by 2024. The sharpest cuts would come to health care programs for the poor and uninsured, food stamps, and array of domestic programs, including Pell Grants, education, and community development grants.
The Wisconsin Republican's plan proposes more money for the Pentagon and wouldn't touch Social Security benefits.
So they propose to starve the poor and squeeze the middle class to pay for the military. Sounds like a GOP dream budget.
It's probably a good idea to remind everyone at this point that Social Security expenses are not part of this budget so his leaving them out is not really a big concession. The only reason they became part of it was because opportunistic politicians of both parties saw the austerity obsession as a way to pass cuts to the program. That did not work, largely because the GOP is dependent on the votes of older voters who in turn are largely dependent on that program. They're going to have to live with that hypocrisy for the time being --- their voters certainly have no problem with it. In their minds, the only people who deserve government largesse are themselves and the military. Everyone else is a freeloader. So this is all good.
The press is presenting this budget and vote as mere symbolism. But they are missing the point. Ryan has consistently moved the goal posts every year since he's been doing these budgets and it's been very successful for him: the 2014 two year budget came in lower than the budget he proposed in 2010. I'm sure he's looking a few years out and assuming he will be able to reach today's goals as well in one of those highly touted, "grown-up" compromises with Senate Democrats. Why wouldn't he?
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