Under the cover of smoke from the rash of 2016 announcements and Texas conspiracy theories, House and Senate Republicans came to a agreement on what could possibly be the most evil budget framework ever passed by any Congress ever.
The Senate gave final approval Tuesday to the first joint congressional budget plan in six years, ratifying a 10-year blueprint that would cut spending by $5.3 trillion, overhaul programs for the poor, repeal President Obama’s health care law and ostensibly produce a balanced budget in less than a decade.
Paul Ryan must be having an orgasm right now.
It's doubtful it will get much farther than a framework, because details matter enough that no one will ever agree, and President Obama will not sign a repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
Nevertheless, enough information has emerged to confirm that it's a billionaire's wet dream and everyone else's nightmare:
Senate Republicans made little of the policies prescribed by their new budget and much of the numbers, which they say show a federal deficit finally disappearing for the first time since 2001. To get there, the budget calls for $4.2 trillion in cuts to benefit programs like Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps over 10 years. Domestic programs at Congress’s annual discretion would be cut by $496 billion below the already tight limits imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011.
And a bit more:
Democrats called attention to the cost reductions required to get to a balanced budget without raising taxes. They include cutting Pell Grant scholarships, either by capping the number of recipients or the benefit amount for each recipient; cutting off health insurance to as many as 27 million people covered by either the president’s health care law or Medicaid; and slicing $600 billion from “income security” programs like school lunches, food stamps, tax credits for the working poor and nutritional assistance to poor mothers.
That laundry list hits this household in three different places. Why do they hate those of us who work, pay our taxes, and try to get our kids educated?
When I find a detailed framework to read that isn't pablum served by our media, I'll look through it and write a more thorough summary. For now, it's enough to know they want to kick millions off their health insurance policies and more.
Wouldn't it be nice if we got as much attention to this as we get to every damn detail of the wingnut's paranoid conspiracy theories?
