House Republicans unveiled their budget proposal on Tuesday, demonstrating that their priorities are still to wage war and to give the rich a helping hand, all while sticking it to the poor. The House budget proposes removing most of the 2010 reforms that were implemented to regulate Wall Street and prevent a greed-driven collapse, like the one that crashed the economy in 2008.
The GOP plan by House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-GA) also calls for drastic cuts to food stamps, Medicare, and Medicaid. Furthermore, the House budget would also slash funding for Pell Grants. Those grants are designed to help make college affordable for low and middle-income families. In addition, The GOP blueprint calls for the complete repeal of Obamacare, even though health care reform has added coverage for 16 million Americans who previously lacked insurance.
The proposal is basically a rewrite of the Paul Ryan plan, which has been panned by critics and rejected by the U.S. Senate repeatedly. The plan does however, increase spending in one key area. House Republicans want to spend 94 billion dollars to fight the global war on terrorism in 2016, more than double the amount requested by President Obama.
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Republicans believe their budget proposal will create a 33 billion dollar surplus by 2025, but that projection is based on “dynamic scoring”, which presumes that supply-side economic growth will increase tax revenues. Republicans used the same “dynamic scoring” in 2001, to argue that the Bush tax cuts would spur tremendous economic growth and fill the federal coffers with tax revenue. In their theory, the prosperous nation would have so many high income earners that lower tax rates would paradoxically create more tax revenue.
That, of course, never happened, but Republicans still believe it will work differently this time around. They don’t score their proposals based on what is likely to happen, but rather on what they want to happen. Somehow, it always works out beautifully on paper that way, though never in the real world.
While it should be obvious to the American public what the Republican Party’s priorities are by now, the recently unveiled House budget serves as yet another reminder about what the modern GOP stands for. The Republican Party’s eagerness to cut programs that benefit poor and middle class families, while lavishing favor on the big banks, the corporate CEOs, and the military contractors, demonstrates all too clearly who they work for.
The GOP House budget may very well fail in the Senate. Even if it passes the Senate, it will face a certain veto from President Obama. Nevertheless, House Republicans have once again, made it abundantly clear, that they have little regard for the average American family or the typical American worker.
Keith Brekhus is a progressive American who currently resides in Red Lodge, Montana. He is co-host for the Liberal Fix radio show. He holds a Master’s Degree in Sociology from the University of Missouri. In 2002, he ran for Congress as a Green Party candidate in the state of Missouri. In 2014, he worked as a field organizer for Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick’s successful re-election bid in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District. He can be followed on Twitter @keithbrekhus or on Facebook.
