GOP's Planned Budget

Robert Reich

Today House Republicans unveiled their budget.
 

(1) decimates programs for the poor (huge cuts in Medicaid, food stamps, and Pell grants for college students from poor families);

(2) cuts federal aid to education; 

(3) turns Medicare into a voucher system (that doesn’t keep up with expected increases in healthcare costs); 

(4) repeals Obamacare (which is now providing health insurance to 16.4 million people who otherwise wouldn’t have it); 

(5) boosts military spending by nearly $40 billion next year (through an off-budget war funding account); 

(6) increases military spending in subsequent years while further cutting domestic discretionary spending; and 

(7) doesn’t raise a dime of taxes on the wealthy and doesn’t close any tax loopholes used by the rich.

Budget plans don’t have the force of law but they set goals and reveal priorities – and now that Republicans run both houses of Congress those goals are doubly important. 

As revealed in this budget, Republicans aim to reward the rich, expand the military, harm the middle class, and screw the poor. 

Nothing new, only slightly more extreme and brazen.