The Republican Plan for the US

Here is a bit from a post by Paul Krugman on his NY Times blog that looks at the Republican Representative Ryan's "budget" for the US:

I think it might be helpful to have a quick picture that illustrates what’s going on in the Ryan budget proposal. Here’s what we get for 2030, according to the CBO analysis:

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Ryan is proposing huge (and largely unspecified) spending cuts; but he’s also proposing very large tax cuts, mainly, of course, for those with high incomes. And as you can see, a large part — roughly half — of the spending cuts are going, not to deficit reduction, but to finance those tax cuts.

Actually, it’s even worse, since the revenue figure in the Ryan plan is simply assumed, and is clearly too high given what he’s actually proposing on taxes; so either the fall in revenue will be even larger than shown here, or there will be unspecified tax hikes on the middle class.

In any case, the bottom line is obvious: this is not the budget of a deficit hawk. It’s the budget of a deficit exploiter, someone who is trying to use fears of red ink to push through a political agenda that includes major losses of revenue.

Sadly, the media in the US is treating the Ryan proposal as "serious" and of course the Republicans are pushing it. But it is a ideological straw man and a cover for an attempt to structure the US as a third world country in which the rich elite live in gated mansions while everybody else is reduced to penury.

It is incredible to see how the US has changed in the last 40 years from a society trying to create more wealth to share to one in which the rich openly take gawdawful big chunks for themselves and leave the scraps falling off the table as the "trickle down" economy for everybody else to fight over. The US went from an idealistic country in the 1960s with a vision of bettering many, many groups to one now where the only group that gets any attention are the ultra-rich who buy off politicians to get ever more "tax cuts" which leaves the country in worse and worse shape. Sad.

And if you don't think the Republicans lie and cheat to try and seduce ordinary Americans into supporting their pro-rich agenda, look at this and this and this and this and this.

And here is Dean Baker's viewpoint on the Ryan plan:

Representative Ryan Proposes Medicare Plan Under Which Seniors Would Pay Most of Their Income for Health Care

That is what headlines would look like if the United States had an independent press. After all, this is one of the main take aways of the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) analysis of the plan proposed by Representative Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee. Representative Ryan would replace the current Medicare program with a voucher for people who turn age 65 in 2022 and later. This voucher would be worth $8,000 in for someone turning age 65 in that year. It would rise in step with with the consumer price index and also as people age. (Health care expenses are higher for people age 75 than age 65.)

According to the CBO analysis the benefit would cover 32 percent of the cost of a health insurance package equivalent to the current Medicare benefit (Figure 1). This means that the beneficiary would pay 68 percent of the cost of this package. Using the CBO assumption of 2.5 percent annual inflation, the voucher would have grown to $9,750 by 2030. This means that a Medicare type plan for someone age 65 would be $30,460 under Representative Ryan's plan, leaving seniors with a bill of $20,700. (This does not count various out of pocket medical expenditures not covered by Medicare.)

...

The other reason that Representative Ryan's plan will lead to rising health care costs for seniors through time is that the voucher payment does not keep pace with health care cost inflation. As costs continue to rise relative to the voucher, seniors will be required to pay a larger portion of their health care costs themselves. It is worth noting that 2030 is only 8 years after the voucher program kicks in.

The Republican plan is a classic "bait and switch" but ordinary people will only realize how badly they've been "had" a decade or two down the road. In the meantime, Republicans are selling hard with all their Madison Avenue skills what a "deal" this plan is, and how it will cut deficits, and deliver such wonderful medical care, a dream!