The United States House of Representatives has passed the Paul Ryan budget blueprint that would end Medicare as we know it, convert Medicaid to a block grant program which would sharply curtail health care availability to the poor and nursing home care to seniors, while further cutting dramatically into aid to those in need of food stamp programs and other social safety net assistance. The Resolution would also effectively repeal the Affordable Care Act while reducing the highest tax rates paid by the nation’s wealthiest citizens by 10% and reduce taxes paid by American corporations.
The Resolution purports to cut some $5.8 trillion dollars from the national debt over the next decade, primarily accomplished by cutting into critical government safety net programs while proposing nothing in tax increases as a part of the reduction plan.
The bill stands in stark contrast to the Obama plan to cut the deficit by achieving $3 dollars in cuts to government programs for every $1 dollar in tax increases to be paid by the wealthiest Americans.
The final vote tally was 235-193, with four Republicans voting against the bill.
No Democrats voted to support the legislation.
While there is no expectation that the Resolution will become law, as the plan is expected to be dead on arrival at the Senate doorstep, the Resolution does contain one element of considerable importance – the $1.019 trillion it allocates to the Appropriations Committee for non-emergency government spending for 2012.
This will become the number that the GOP will fight to defend in the 2012 budget that must be approved by September 30th of this year when we will, again, face a government shutdown should there be no agreement.
Earlier this week, President Obama made clear that he has no intention of going along with the GOP budget plan that would require the nation to break its commitments to the nation’s seniors – while imposing no obligation on the nation’s wealthiest to contribute to lowering the deficit.
Still, House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, continues to pretend that the GOP budget – a plan that converts Medicare into a voucher program whereby seniors will be left to fend for themselves should the vouchers prove insufficient to cover the rising costs of medical care- does not end one of the most popular government programs in the nation’s history.
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