Shutdown Looms As GOP "Courageously" Pushes Nauseating Budget

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and his precious budget. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite

House Speaker John Boehner emerged from a closed-door budget meeting with President Obama yesterday and announced that no deal had been reached, increasingly the likelihood of a government shutdown. House Republicans say they are open to approving another one-week stop-gap budget extension, but Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, also told the Times, "The White House has increased the likelihood of a shut down." The impasse comes as the House Budget Committee chairman, Republican Paul Ryan, released the proposed Republican budget, which cuddly conservative columnist David Brooks hails as "courageous" and "serious." So you know it must be really messed up.

The Republican budget, called The Path to Prosperity, would reduce federal spending by $6.2 trillion over ten years, and reduce the debt by $4.4 trillion, while cutting taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations and reconfiguring major federal health programs like like Medicare and Medicaid. In a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed explaining the budget, Ryan says, "This budget will build upon the historic welfare reforms of the late 1990s by converting the federal share of Medicaid spending into a block grant that lets states create a range of options and gives Medicaid patients access to better care. It proposes similar reforms to the food-stamp program, ending the flawed incentive structure that rewards states for adding to the rolls."

The genius of Ryan's plan—which would give Medicare subscribers vouchers to pay for private insurance—is that it won't affect anyone who is currently 55 or older—the GOP's main constituents. Matthew Yglesias at Think Progress writes:

The idea here is that today’s old people—a very white group that’s also hostile to gay rights, and thus sort of predisposed to like conservative politicians—will also get to benefit from an extremely generous single-payer health care system. But younger people—a less white group that’s friendly to gay rights and thus predisposed to skepticism about conservative politicians—will get to pay the high taxes to finance old people’s generous single-payer health care system, but then we won’t get to benefit from it. This is in part in order to clear headroom in the budget so as to make gigantic tax cuts for rich people affordable.

According to the Center for Tax Justice analysis (PDF), ninety percent of Americans would actually pay higher taxes under his plan. At a press conference yesterday, Ryan saluted the freshman Tea Party Republicans in the House, telling reporters, "The new people did not come here for a political career. They came here for a cause. This isn’t a budget. This a cause.” Representative Chris Van Hollen, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, dismissed it a "rigid ideological agenda that extends tax cuts to the rich and powerful at the expense of the rest of America."

Today President Obama made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room, telling reporters that he believes a budget deal is still possible that will avert a government shutdown this weekend. According to the AP, Obama said "the only question standing the way of a shutdown is whether politics or ideology will block a deal." Inconceivable!

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in News on April 5, 2011 2:34 PM

Comments [rss]

matteus

We just bombed the shit outta Libya without any immediate need and they want to make sure we don't cut a cent from the military budget, we're 3 days from a government shutdown. Holy freaking hell am I mad at everyone who thought the Tea Party was a good idea.

HypocraticOath

Republicans are such pigs...WHY DO THE RICH NEED ANY MORE TAX CUTS? If corporations want to do business here, they can pay higher taxes. I love how they were at fault for the massive deficit and now they want to play politics with cutting the budget. It is like a little child- if you dont play the way I want to, Ill take my ball and go home (or in this case, shut down the govt). Assholes of the highest order.

Please also note, I voted enthusiastically for Cuomo but never again b/c he also caved to the rich and didnt let the taxes they pay continue.

HAD1

I am so sick and tired of the GOP and the Democrats acting like two little brats. Trying to build on 1990 with the Medicare/Medicaid programs in 2011 just doesn't make sense. What 1990 was all about doesn't compare with what we are going through this year. The population has expanded, jobs are close to being nonexistent and more people need more help than back then. We should be looking forward with our financial plans not turning back to a year that was different in nature.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan should not be allowed to be involved with anything that pertains to budgets. This man is the kind of poison that we don't need in our House. We should tax the rich, they can afford it and it was us consumers that made them rich.
I am very sick of both parties and they should both be put in their own corners for being very bad. They don't really care about our demands or wants, we are only money to them. Well, this part of the money wheel would like to have a talk to both of them and explain to them that we are real humans and not numbers.
I am seeing a very bleak future for everyone if both parties don't get together and talk things out like adults.

Guest

I agree with some of your points, but taxing the rich is silly. We're all Americans and EQUAL under the Constitution. They should pay the exact same thing we pay. It's only fair.

cmdrogogov

Only it isn't.

Guest

Explain how it isn't. Why should they pay more just because they make more?
Why should it be their burden to help out those who, for the most part, don't
help themselves?

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cmdrogogov

No.

You claimed that taxing the rich is silly. The onus is on you to make a reasonable, rational case as to why flat-rate taxation is preferable to progressive taxation.

Guest

No, I did not say taxing the rich is silly. I said making them pay more taxes
than the rest of us is silly. We live in a country whose main principle is that
all men are created equal. That being said, if you tax someone 10% of a dollar,
they pay 10 cents (this would be the poor side of the equation, in case you were
unable to catch on). If you tax someone 10% of a million, they pay $100,000
(this is the rich side). How is that unfair? Are you claiming that the rich,
who by the way are much more philanthropic than the poor, should somehow pay
more because they don't deserve the money they worked for, but the poor deserve
everything they work for because they are somehow much more deserving of it than
the rich?

________________________________

cmdrogogov

also from your post-
"I agree with some of your points, but TAXING THE RICH IS SILLY. We're all Americans and EQUAL under the Constitution. They should pay the exact same thing we pay. It's only fair. "

(emphasis mine)

Guest

Oh, so it's a semantics game you want to play. Well, comprehension should be
what you're after, and anyone with an ounce of reading comprehension, would be
able to understand what I meant by that. So, I said taxing the rich was silly.
If you read the rest of it, you'd comprehend that I was talking about taxing
them more than the rest of us. You can keep trying to push me down, but it
won't work. I'm much too stubborn and will argue with a STOP sign if I don't
agree with it.

________________________________

cmdrogogov

I don't see how a simple quote (in context) qualifies as a semantics game. You said taxing the rich is silly, I called you on it, end of discussion.

And again, there is a whole litany of solid economic and ethical reasons as to why a progressive taxation structure is preferable to support a mobile economy.

Please, just do some reading - with tools like Google that's very easy. If you want to abuse what you find to push your point of view, fine - but I would rather hope you come away with a better understanding of the issue and realize the argument for a flat tax rate is by its very nature a simplistic and inappropriate response to a complex problem.

Guest

OK. I'm out of my league here and so I bow to your economics education. All I
was really saying is that taxing the rich more than the poor is not a way to
show that every person is equal. I believe it to be completely against our
nation's ideals.

________________________________

Inspector Spacetime

Historically speaking, Americans have always been taxed unequally. It (variably) varied by state, town, race, religion, landownership-status, occupation, etc.

Guest

True. And that's my point. We've had so many unfair taxes based on things they
shouldn't be based on (race, religion, etc.) that taxing the rich more than
anyone else just continues that unfairness.

________________________________

mattbrooklyn

"I'm much too stubborn and will argue with a STOP sign if I don't agree with it."

Well that explains why you have all those stupid and obviously false beliefs.

mattbrooklyn

"I'm much too stubborn and will argue with a STOP sign if I don't agree with it."

Well that explains why you have all those stupid and obviously false beliefs.

mattbrooklyn

"I'm much too stubborn and will argue with a STOP sign if I don't agree with it."

Well that explains why you have all those stupid and obviously false beliefs.

Guest

That makes no sense. You want stupid and false beliefs, go talk to your
friends. I'm sure they have stupid and false beliefs that you are a decent
person.

________________________________

unretrofiedforu

" I'm much too stubborn and will argue with a STOP sign if I don't
agree with it. "

Hence why we have misinformation. These are facts whether you chose to believe it or not. Views like yours are why the best country in the world is now approaching ruin.

Guest

Views like mine are why the best country in the world is the best country in the world. Our forefathers fought against tyranny and oppression, the same as I do. They didn't take everything the British monarchy told them at face value. 'Facts' are only 'facts' if they can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and there is plenty of reasonable doubt surrounding the events of that day.