VOO-DOO HOOEY

Congressman Paul Ryan, GOP budget guru, has recently presented his proposed budget for the nation.  While both holding Ryan up as a fresh young thinker for the Republican Party, AND at the same time distancing themselves from his actual budget plan, the Washington GOP is totally schizophrenic about what the hell they plan to DO when/if they take control of Washington. 

‘Hey, America, here’s our brilliant new right-wing face, whose ideas we do NOT stand behind.’  Okay?!?

And there are reasons they won’t stand behind Ryan’s budget plan.  It doesn’t add up to begin with, and his whole approach is to privatize and drastically slash Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, while maintaining massive tax-cuts to the wealthiest among us.  Unpopular ideas, and not effective either.  

Even that Leftie Alan Greenspan has recently said that for the deficit’s sake, we need to let the Bush tax-cuts expire.  Alan Greenspan.

The Congressional Budget Office scored Ryan’s plan, and their findings were that by 2050 this plan would eliminate federal deficits.  Well that seems like good news —and it would be if it were true.

The CBO draws its conclusions based on the revenue projections that are provided to them.  They don’t analyze the effects of tax policy on revenue and what those impacts would actually be; they just take the numbers that are provided to them — Paul Ryan’s numbers in this case — and those numbers are not based in reality.  

This plan (by the Congressman who would be in charge of the House Committee on the Budget IF the Republicans win back the House) was analyzed by a non-partisan think tank, The Tax Policy Center, and their  conclusion is that Ryan’s “Roadmap” would result in massive deficits.  The Ryan tax proposals (which by the way are GOP ideas, despite Boehner’s disclaimers) that call for massive tax-cuts for the wealthy, paired with large tax-increases on 90 % of Americans, would result in enormous revenue losses and deficits.

The Center says that Ryan’s plan would result in a growing federal debt for decades to come, in spite of the drastic cuts in Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, and large tax increases on the lower 90% of income earners.  In other words, the tax-cuts for the top 10% would dwarf the combination of tax increases on the vast majority of Americans and the slashing of our social safety net.  

The administration’s budget, on the other hand, would increase federal income, as a share of GDP, up from 14.5% in 2010 to 19.6% in 2020.  The deficits would not be totally eliminated, but would be at a reasonable and manageable level.

It all began with Ronald Reagan, who implemented Trickle Down Economics in 1980, taking the federal debt from $908 billion to $2.6 trillion, in just eight short years, as a result of his many tax-cuts.  That’s a jump of 186% in national debt!  The GOP premise that tax-cuts for the wealthy lead to robust economic growth has been disproven time and time again — as we’ve documented often in our previous posts (see posts below). 

The GOP rants that “deficits are the most serious threat to our nation” and Reagan is their role model?  Our national debt cannot stand more Republican rule — it’s time to get real, and get pragmatic.

So, the current rising star of the GOP proposes a budget plan that would result in massive deficits and place hardships on the elderly, middle class and the poor in order to reward — once again — the wealthy.  The history of Bill Clinton’s tax-increases on the wealthy, and the resulting booming economy, followed by W.’s massive tax-cuts which led to a disastrous economy, have been well documented in this blog and elsewhere. 

And yet, and yet — the GOP just can’t give up their blind faith in Voo-Doo Economics!