GOP budget vs the people

The House GOP budget, designed by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and released yesterday, would destroy the American Dream and, according to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka,, “establish a government of, by and for the 1percent.”

“House Republicans have dropped all pretenses,” he declared, “and laid out their plan to destroy Medicare and Social Security. The Republican plan would not only keep Bush tax cuts for the wealthy from expiring, but would actually cut taxes for rich people even further. The Republican plan would throw even more money away by giving multinational corporations massive new tax breaks to encourage them to export more jobs overseas.”

The budget proposes the unleashing of numerous additional reductions in the living standards of working people.

With health care costs going through the roof and employers cutting back on health insurance the new Ryan budget would add millions to the rolls of the uninsured by eliminating the health care reforms, with no program to replace them.

The Ryan plan for Medicare would turn the successful program into a voucher plan that would not keep up with costs, forcing seniors to pay thousands more out of their own pockets and it would drastically slash Medicaid support for the poor, the disabled and the terminally ill.

With America spending more on weapons than the rest of the world combined the Ryan plan calls for increases in military spending.

With infrastructure crumbling, schools falling apart, and a prostate construction industry the GOP budget calls for spending less, not more on the rebuilding of the nation.

With multinational corporations sharpening their skills in the area of hiding their assets the GOP plan nevertheless make the entire planet outside the borders of the U.S. into a perfectly legal and safe tax shelter for those multinationals.

The GOP spending plan was announced yesterday, went through Ryan’s congressional budget panel  today on a party-line vote and is expected to be approved tomorrow by the full House, also on a party-line vote..

‘The proposed tax cuts for the rich would have to be paid for by the middle class and the poor,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the budget panel’s top Democrat, yesterday. His remarks were seconded by Gene Sperling, chair of the President’s National Economic Council

Sperling told the Press Associates Union News Service that the Republican plan fails to create a single job.  “By contrast, President Obama’s budget has $60 billion more for infrastructure, $30 billion more for school construction and $30 billion to prevent teacher layoffs. All would have made a significant difference in the unemployment rate.”

The House Republicans ignored the President’s budget proposals.

Service Employees President Mary Kay Henry said the GOP plan “enables millionaires and corporations to avoid paying their fair share in taxes while making extreme cuts to programs that will cost American jobs and sacrifice essential services. To continue our economic recovery we need serious proposals that invest in America.”

American Federation of Government Employees president John Gage said “the House GOP budget proposes a staggering $368 billion in additional workforce cuts over the next 10 years. Federal employees would have their salaries frozen for another three years and would face massive cuts to the retirement benefits promised when they were hired.

“Meanwhile, ” he said, “the GOP budget delivers more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires, oil companies and Wall Street firms who continue to score record profits while the rest of the country struggles to recover.”

Gage noted that federal workers have already had their pay frozen for two years, saving the government $60 billion over ten years and that new federal workers pay four times as much in retirement contributions, saving an additional $15 billion “It is fundamentally wrong,” he said, “for federal workers to be required yet again to serve as the Automated Teller Machine for the Nation.”

Photo: Pennsylvania heath care workers and retirees protest proposed cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. Gene J. Puskar/AP