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.
Republicans
say the cuts are necessary to reduce the deficit and balance the
budget, but annual budget deficits have fallen steeply during the Obama
years. Going forward, there is both a need and an opportunity for the
government to spend in ways that create jobs and lay a foundation for
future growth, say, by investing in education, science and
infrastructure. And even if cutting the budget were urgent — which it is
not — the House Republican plan ignores the most sensible, equitable
cuts.
For
example, it doesn’t propose to reduce the deficit by closing tax
loopholes that drain the budget of more than $1 trillion a year and that
overwhelmingly benefit the highest-income households, including special
low tax rates on investment income.
The
absence of tax increases in the presence of deep spending cuts is a
recipe for increasing both poverty and inequality. But the budget plan
blithely predicts that its policy proposals will bolster economic growth
and increase tax revenues by some $140 billion over the next 10 years,
leading to budget surpluses.
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.
