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Security

Rep. McCarthy: Pushing 300K Children Off Lunch Program To Protect Military Spending Is Trimming The Fat

By Ben Armbruster on May 8, 2012 at 11:04 am

House Majority Whip Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)

Yesterday, House Republicans moved legislation forward aimed at preventing any reductions in military spending, even if that means cutting much needed programs for the nation’s poorest. The House Armed Services Committee’s bill provides $554 billion for the Pentagon — $29 billion more than DOD had requested — while the GOP-led Budget Committee packaged six bills that would “slice $261 billion from food stamps, Medicaid, social services and other programs for struggling Americans.”

Last night on Fox News, House Majoriy Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) claimed that the Republicans were just trimming the fat from the budget and getting rid of wasteful spending:

VAN SUSTEREN: But these cuts — I mean, these cuts — I mean, some of the cuts, I mean, just — you know, there are — there’s money sitting in our government. There’s some fat that we can.. some of these cuts. I mean — the fat is incredible!

MCCARTHY: Then you would support what we’re doing. That’s we’re doing committee by committee!

Watch the clip:

So what do McCarthy and the GOP consider budget fat? The New York Times today offered some details:

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill would push 1.8 million people off food stamps and could cost 280,000 children their school lunch subsidies and 300,000 children their health insurance coverage through the federal and state Children’s Health Insurance Program. Elimination of the social services block grant to state and local governments would hit child abuse prevention programs, Meals on Wheels and child care.

A further 23 million would be affected by the repeal of the Social Services Block Grant, which helps fund child care and disability assistance to low-income Americans.

In fact, eliminating the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans would more than provide the savings the Republicans are seeking, twice over.

But not only are House Republicans protecting “largely useless” weapons systems and programs by cutting needed social services, their motivation stems from trying to prevent military spending cuts of nearly $500 billion over ten years because of the Budget Control Act’s sequestration trigger. Luckily for the GOP, the Center for American Progress has found more than $500 billion in Pentagon cuts — i.e. the real budget fat — that could be implemented over the next decade while still maintaining our vast military superiority.

While GOP plan has no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate, the AP noted yesterday that it is “likely just a sample of what’s in store next year from Republicans if Mitt Romney wins the White House and the GOP takes back the Senate.”

Security

To Protect Military Budget, House GOP Plans To Cut 25 Percent From Programs ‘Directly Benefiting The Poor’

By Ben Armbruster on May 7, 2012 at 11:40 am

The House Budget Committee is set to meet today on a new GOP plan to stave off further cuts in military spending that are mandated by the Budget Control Act’s sequestration trigger. The Pentagon will be required to trim $55 billion from its budget next year and House Republicans think they’ve figured out a way to prevent that: cut programs for the poor, the AP reports:

The Republicans who control the House are using cuts to food aid, health care and social services like Meals on Wheels to protect the Pentagon from a wave of budget cuts come January. [...]

Fully one-fourth of the House GOP spending cuts come from programs directly benefiting the poor, such as Medicaid, food stamps, the Social Services Block Grant, and a child tax credit claimed by working immigrants.

As CAP’s Melissa Boteach, Lawrence Korb and Max Hoffman noted in a report last month, with the cuts they are calling for, House Republicans will be protecting “largely useless” weapons systems, preserving funding for unnecessary programs like the V-22 Osprey, and adding two nuclear submarines to the U.S. military’s already “overwhelming preponderance of sea power.”

At the same time, the GOP plan would, for example, cut food stamps for 2 million people and reduce the same benefits for 44 million others. Nearly 300,000 school children would lose free school meals and hundreds of thousands could lose their Medicaid or CHIP coverage.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops last month criticized the GOP’s cuts to food stamps, tax credits for immigrant families, and other safety net programs as “unjustified and wrong.”

And while the AP notes that the GOP plan “will be dead on arrival” in the Democrat-controlled Senate, “they’re likely just a sample of what’s in store next year from Republicans if Mitt Romney wins the White House and the GOP takes back the Senate.”

Economy

GOP Rep. Tiberi Defends Tax Hikes For The Poor Because They ‘Don’t Have Skin In The Game’

By Jeff Spross and Scott Keyes on Apr 18, 2012 at 10:45 am

Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-OH), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, defended the House Republican budget at a tax policy summit yesterday — as well as the broader idea that taxes on the wealthy need to be cut while taxes on lower-income Americans should be raised. When asked by ThinkProgress’ Scott Keyes to square the GOP’s explicit desire to cut taxes for the rich with the fact that it’s budget would raise taxes on low-income working Americans, Tiberi responded by saying that to do otherwise would be to “beat up on people who are trying to be successful.” He then made the case for raising taxes on the poor by lamenting that they don’t have any “skin in the game”:

TIBERI: I think the federal government has an obligation to make sure that we deal with people who have difficulties. But at the same time, the tax code shouldn’t be used as a tool to just bring revenue in and beat up people who are trying to be successful…So I think we’ve got to lower the tax rates, both for corporations and for American individuals. And let them try to grow our economy and grow jobs so people like you and me can have an opportunity to work.

KEYES: But you’re only talking about lowering tax rates on individuals in the upper income areas. You’re talking about raising taxes…

TIBERI: Well, it’s hard to lower taxes on people who don’t pay taxes. As you know, you have the Earned Income Tax Credit, so you have folks who are actually getting a check and not paying income tax…If you don’t have skin in the game, even if it’s ten bucks a quarter, I think it changes the debate on what the role of the federal government is and what the role of state government is.

Watch it:

The budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), defended by Tiberi, and passed by the House Republicans, would cut taxes for millionaires by an average of $187,000 in 2014 alone, even if tax expenditures are eliminated to offset the revenue loss. Meanwhile, it would allow tax cuts on low-income Americans, passed in response to the economic collapse, to expire. Families making $30,000 or less would see their after-tax income fall, in some cases by as much as 2 percent, while those making over $1 million would see it rise by 12.5 percent.

Furthermore more than two-thirds of Americans who don’t pay income taxes still have “skin in the game” due to payroll taxes. Payroll tax receipts contributed $865 billion in revenue in 2010 — almost equal to the $899 billion contributed by income taxes. Adding up both payroll and income taxes, less than one quarter of Americans owe none of either, and the vast majority of them are poor, in school, or elderly and retired.

Economy

House Republicans Propose Cutting Consumer Protection Bureau And Foreclosure Prevention

By Pat Garofalo on Apr 13, 2012 at 5:40 pm

House Republicans have already shown that they’re willing to sacrifice health care, food stamps, and education upon the altar of deficit reduction in their latest budget. Now financial regulation can be added to the list, courtesy of a proposal unveiled today by the House Financial Services Committee today.

House Republicans on that committee — which has become the second most lucrative committee for fundraising — today released their plan to come up with the cuts mandated by the budget authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI). Their proposed cuts include:

– ELIMINATING RESOLUTION AUTHORITY: This is a power included in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law of 2008 that allows the government to dissolve a failed financial firm without resorting to the ad hoc bailouts of 2008. Ryan explicitly called for its repeal in the budget, even though it would leave the government powerless to act should another big bank bring the economy to the brink of disaster, other than handing it a bailout.

– ELIMINATING FORECLOSURE PREVENTION PROGRAM: The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) has undoubtedly fallen woefully short of its goals, reaching far fewer homeowners than it was supposed to. But House Republicans want to eliminate it entirely, even with 3.6 homeowners estimated to go into foreclosure in the next two years.

– CUTTING THE CONSUMER PROTECTION BUREAU’S BUDGET BY TWO-THIRDS: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a budget of just shy of $600 million for fiscal year 2013. House Republicans propose , even as the agency begins reining in abuses in the student loan and home mortgage industries.

House Republicans have been trying to water down Dodd-Frank ever since it passed. This budget proposal from the Financial Services Committee is just the latest round in the effort to ensure that the committee follows its chairman’s order to “serve the banks.”

LGBT

How The Ryan Budget Devastates LGBT Families

By Guest Blogger on Apr 11, 2012 at 4:16 pm

Our guest blogger is Crosby Burns, Research Associate for LGBT Progress.

Strengthening the economic security of American families remains a key policy priority for decreasing poverty, reducing inequality, and growing our economy through a sustained and supported middle class. Not all families, however, are equal under the law.

Unfortunately, many government-sponsored programs treat LGBT families differently than their non-LGBT counterparts. Due to narrow definitions of who constitutes a “family,” many of the more than 2 million children living with LGBT families do not have the same access to the economic safeguards afforded to other children in the United States today.

Moreover, this discrimination in government programs exacerbates the economic insecurities created by the high rates of unfair treatment facing the LGBT population. Discrimination in health care, housing, and the workplace leaves far too many LGBT families without health insurance, affordable housing, and a job to make ends meet.

No child should go hungry, uninsured, or homeless in the United States, regardless of the sexual orientation or gender identity of their parent. Still, LGBT families are among some of the most economically vulnerable in the United States. These American families need more economic support from social safety net programs and government tax breaks, not less. This is why the annual budget-making process is so crucial to the health, wellness, and economic livelihood of LGBT families.

Today, the Center for American Progress released an issue brief taking a look at three areas of the budget in particular that are crucial to LGBT families.

  • Medicaid – Families headed by LGBT parents are less likely to have health insurance than families with non-LGBT parents. LGBT families often rely upon public health insurance programs – such as Medicaid – to help fill gaps in coverage. This is despite the fact that the program uses a definition of “family” that makes it more difficult for some LGBT families to access health insurance through Medicaid.
  • SNAP – Recent research indicates that LGBT families may be disproportionately food insecure. This is why programs like SNAP (formerly the food stamp program) are especially crucial in reducing hunger for children being raise in low-income LGBT households.
  • Financial Aid for Higher Education – Like Medicaid, the Federal Application For Student Aid (FAFSA) uses an outdated definition of what constitutes a “family,” making it more difficult for some LGBT families to access equal financial assistance for higher education. Children with LGBT parents need more financial aid to attend college, not less.

These American families need more economic support from social safety net programs and government tax breaks, not less. Unfortunately, Congressman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposed budget turns a precarious situation into a dire situation for these families. Instead of supporting the economic security of households headed by LGBT parents, just last week House Republicans passed Congressman Ryan’s budget which shreds the safety net to tatters, including the three programs outlined above (and then some). Put bluntly, the Ryan budget is a disaster for LGBT families.

Instead, these families need a budget that helps them meet their financial needs. Going forward, lawmakers should use their power of the purse to make sure that no family falls through the cracks during hard economic times, including LGBT families.

Economy

Republican Congressman Tries To Walk Back Calling The House GOP Budget A ‘Joke’

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Apr 4, 2012 at 5:00 pm

Rep. Connie Mack IV (R-FL)

Rep. Connie Mack IV (R-FL), who is running for the Senate, strongly criticized the House Republican budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) this weekend.

At a Tea Party forum in Orlando, Mack explained why he didn’t vote on the Ryan budget. “I was here in Florida campaigning,” Mack said. “You know that budget was a joke, doesn’t balance the budget for years.”

His campaign is already trying to walk back the claim, saying Mack was merely criticizing the budget process, not the budget’s substance. “He supports they Ryan plan but the process is a joke when the GOP House continues to do the right things and the liberal Senate….continues to kill fiscally responsible measures,” spokesman David James said. But that seems very difficult to square with what Mack actually said.

And while the Florida congressman will likely be pilloried by fellow Republicans, as presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was when he called Ryan’s budget “right-wing social engineering” last year, Mack is right. The GOP budget doesn’t actually balance the budget. In fact, it makes the debt worse. “[D]eficits would never drop below 4.4 percent of GDP, and would rise to more than 5 percent of GDP by 2022,” Center for American Progress Tax and Budget Policy Director Michael Linden noted.

NEWS FLASH

Geithner: House Republican Budget Is A ‘Recipe For Decline’ | Yesterday, President Obama blasted the House Republican budget that passed last week as “thinly veiled social Darwinism” that is a “prescription for decline.” Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner piled on today, calling the budget a “recipe for decline.” “There is no economic or financial case for using the fear of future deficits to cut as deeply into core functions of the government, to weaken the safety net or fundamentally alter Medicare benefits as do the Republican proposals,” Geithner said during a speech at the Economic Club of Chicago.

Health

How Republicans Attack Women’s Economic Security With Ryan Budget In One Chart

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Apr 4, 2012 at 8:30 am

Attacks on women’s reproductive rights were only the beginning in House Republicans’ war on women. Now they are attacking women’s economic security. The House-passed GOP budget targets poor women and their families, from gutting programs that help low-income children receive nutrition and educational opportunities to cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which primarily helps women, children, the disabled, and the elderly. And proposed Medicaid cuts would hurt women and families supporting elderly loved ones in nursing homes and people who rely on Medicaid for preventive health services.

Despite claims that the budget “empower[s] individuals with greater control over their futures,” the Republican budget written by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) does the opposite. As CAP’s Katie Wright explains, “By choking off opportunity for women and children of all ages, the budget leaves poor women to fend for themselves and puts the American Dream further out of reach.”

Here’s a chart that outlines how the GOP’s war on women’s economic security hits women at every stage of life:

Economy

President Obama Calls Republican Budget ‘Thinly-Veiled Social Darwinism,’ ‘A Prescription For Decline’

By Pat Garofalo on Apr 3, 2012 at 1:17 pm

President Obama today used a speech before the Associated Press Luncheon to deliver a defense of the social safety net and government investment, while laying out the empirical case against supply-side economics. “You would think that after the results of this experiment in trickle-down economics were made painfully clear, the proponents of this theory might moderate their views a bit,” Obama said. “But that’s exactly the opposite of what they’ve done.”

In that vein, he took a shot at the House Republican budget that was passed last week (with zero Democratic votes), calling it “thinly-veiled Social Darwinism”:

This Congressional Republican budget is something different altogether. It is a Trojan Horse. Disguised as deficit reduction plan, it is really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. It is thinly-veiled Social Darwinism. It is antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everybody who’s willing to work for it — a place where prosperity doesn’t trickle down from the top, but grows outward from the heart of the middle class. And by gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that’s built to last — education and training; research and development; our infrastructure — it is a prescription for decline.

Watch it:

“What drags down our entire economy is when there is an ever-widening chasm between the ultra rich and everybody else,” Obama added. The House Republican budget would give millionaires hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax cuts, while getting 62 percent of its spending cuts from programs that benefit low-income Americans.

Security

Rep. Ryan: ‘I Really Misspoke’ When I Said The Generals Were Lying

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Apr 1, 2012 at 10:02 am

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) today walked back his previous accusation that generals were lying about their support of President Obama’s Pentagon budget. On CNN’s “State of the Union” this morning, Ryan said that he had called to apologize to Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

RYAN: I really misspoke, to be candid with you, Candy. I didn’t mean to make that kind of impression. So, I was clumsy in describing the point I was trying to make. The point I was trying to make — and General Dempsey and I spoke after that. I wanted to give that point to him, which is that’s not what I was attempting to say. [...]

CROWLEY: You have apologized to him?

RYAN: Yeah, I called him to tell him that.

Watch it:

On ABC’s This Week, Ryan also said he “totally misspoke,” and claimed, “My issue is I think that the president’s budget on the Pentagon is a budget-driven strategy, not a strategy-driven budget.” But even that statement is a false attack on the generals.

After ThinkProgress reported earlier last week that Ryan said he doesn’t “think the generals are giving their true advice,” Gen. Dempsey explicitly said, “My response is: I stand by my testimony. This was very much a strategy-driven process to which we mapped the budget.”

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