A House Republican plan to slash funding for a Social Security program would cost taxpayers far more than it would save, according to a letter from Social Security’s chief actuary. The Republican plan, which is focused on a program meant to ensure that beneficiaries are not overpaid, would cut more than $800 million below the level agreed to in the Budget Control Act, the spending agreement passed during last year’s debt limit negotiations.

According to Social Security chief actuary Stephen Goss, however, the cuts will cost taxpayers between $5 billion and $6 billion, Talking Points Memo reports:

In a Thursday letter responding to inquiring House Democrats, Social Security’s chief actuary Stephen C. Goss concludes that cuts will cost taxpayers “between $5 billion and $6 billion more over the lifetime of those who would not be reassessed due to the reduced funding.”

The cut would hamper the highly-effective program that roots out waste, fraud, and abuse in Social Security — according to Goss, such reviews produce between $6 and $9 in regained savings per dollar spent. While the analysis only covered the impact on the program this year, future cuts would likely have a similar impact on the program.

House leadership isn’t likely to give the Labor, Health, and Education appropriations package that contains the cuts a vote before the full House, but the plan keeps up the GOP’s disturbing trend of targeting social safety net programs that largely benefit the lower- and middle-classes.

House Democrats have introduced a bill in the House — bound to go nowhere due to the Republican majority — that would increase the minimum wage to $10. This would give the wage the purchasing power that it had in the 1960s.

Republicans have publicly met the idea of raising the minimum wage with contempt, with Rep. Bill Young (R-FL) even nonsensically telling one constituent who asked about the Democrats’ bill to “get a job.” Meanwhile, thousands of working Americans this week rallied in favor a higher minimum wage.

Conservative opposition to a higher minimum wage hinges on a few tired arguments that ultimately protect big businesses and hurt low-income workers. Here are the favorite conservative myths when it comes to the minimum wage and why there’s really nothing to them:

1) The minimum wage kills jobs. “It’s a classic election-year ploy to make the Democrats look like they’re protecting low-income workers. I think it’s well understood that raising the minimum wage hurts workers on the lower end of the pay scale in that it does kill jobs,” said a recent statement from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. However, several academic studies have shown that raising the minimum wage does not have a negative effect on employment. In fact, an analysis of state minimum wage increases showed that those state boosting their wage “had job growth slightly above the national average.”

2) Increasing the minimum wage hurts small businesses. Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) reacted to a proposal to raise the minimum wage by saying that small business owners are “going to have to lay people off.” However, two-thirds of low-wage workers actually work for big corporations, most of which have largely recovered from the recession and could therefore afford to increase wages. The three largest employers of low-wage workers have all seen large profit increases in the last few years.

3) Increasing the minimum wage only benefits teenagers. Many Republicans argue that raising the minimum wage just hurts teenagers’ ability to gain work experience. But as a new report from the Economic Policy Institute shows, nearly 90 percent of minimum wage workers are 20 years old or older. Plus, “more than a third (35.8 percent) [of minimum wage workers] are married, and over a quarter (28.0 percent) are parents.”

Mitt Romney embarked on a trip to Europe this week that begins with a stop in the United Kingdom, where Romney will both attend the London Olympics and meet with top British officials, including Prime Minister David Cameron. But being in Europe hasn’t stopped Romney from taking potshots at the continent.

During an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams, Romney warned that America’s current path will make it end up like Europe, which is stuck in economic doldrums (according to a transcript provided by NBC):

BRIAN WILLIAMS: And when Mitt Romney arrives in Washington, how will Washington be any different from the Washington we’ve seen these past few years, which any American will tell you is hopelessly broken, busted?

MITT ROMNEY: You know, all I can say is that I got elected governor of a state that was 87% Democrat. And it was not lost on me that if I went around attacking the Democrat leadership, I was gonna get nothing done and none of my vetoes would be upheld. And I began a relationship with the speaker of the House and the Senate president that was personal. We respected each other. We often disagreed. But we found common ground from time to time. That has to happen. There has to be a president that buries the hatchet and says, “We’re gonna go to work to try and get America on track.” We– we’re at a critical time in this country. If we keep going down the path we’re on, we’re gonna end up like Europe or worse.

This is a common critique that Romney makes, claiming that President Obama is “taking us down a path towards Europe.” However, he conveniently ignores that his policies closely align with the austerity that’s been adopted across Europe, which has unnecessarily blunted economic growth. In fact, the European governments that have embraced austerity the hardest have seen their economies contract the most.

As this chart shows, the U.S. is doing better in terms of economic growth than both the Eurozone and the United Kingdom, where Prime Minister David Cameron has embraced austerity:

The UK has not only contracted for three straight quarters, but the UK economy is now smaller than it was before Cameron’s conservative government came into power. This follows Cameron’s $130 billion of budget cuts, and warnings from Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer that further austerity may come after the current package expires. And Romney’s penchant for the spending cuts included in, for instance, the House Republican budget, would likely lead to a similar outcome.

According to data compiled by Bloomberg News back in March, the largest gender gap in terms of pay occurs on Wall Street, where women earn 55 to 62 cents for every dollar that men earn. But that’s not the only way in which Wall Street leaves women behind.

According to research highlighted by the New York Times, women make up more than half of the financial industry’s workforce, but are executives at barely any firms:

The figures tell an alarming story. Women make up more than half of the work force in the financial industry but are chief executives at fewer than 3 percent of U.S. financial companies, according to Catalyst, a New York-based global research and consulting nonprofit focused on women’s career advancement.

Why is Wall Street so slow to promote women? Is that a reflection of U.S. society in general or is there a peculiarity to the Wall Street experience?

Of course, even reaching the upper echelon of corporate America doesn’t guarantee women equal pay, as a female CEO makes 69 cents for every dollar that a male CEO makes. But perhaps Wall Street is shooting itself in the foot by failing to promote women to positions of power, as “several studies have shown that women are more profitable investors, money managers and hedge fund managers, and they incur less risk in the process.”