This is an update on my earlier post seen here.
The W/H and OPM rips McCarthy budget and debt ceiling plan
this way as reported on from The AP with this headline:
“WH analysis of GOP deficit
plan: job losses, poorer kids”
White House budget director (OMB) Shalanda Young concludes in a draft
of an analysis: “There is no escaping the
pain to working families and our economic future.” Young's analysis is an effort to explain those possible consequences,
though McCarthy anticipated the criticism by telling a Wall Street audience on
Monday: “Don’t believe anyone who
says our plans hurt Americans' social safety net. We are a very generous
nation. And when people fall on tough times, we'll help them.”
WASHINGTON (AP) —
The White House says the math in GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's plan to
trim the federal deficit is “unforgiving with estimated 22% of deep cuts to non-defense
spending that would leave children poorer, veterans sicker, families hungrier,
and housing more expensive.
President Biden and GOP
lawmakers are engaged in a tense showdown over federal finances. GOP House
Speaker McCarthy (R-CA) insists on spending cuts as a condition to raise the
government's legal borrowing authority while Biden wants to keep
budget talks separate from the critical debt limit action.
1. The GOP
is betting that the public supports smaller government.
2. Conversely,
the White House's strategy is premised on the resulting cuts being unpopular
once the consequences are understood.
3. McCarthy
had criticized President Biden for avoiding a sit-down talk (Biden offered his
plan and told McCarthy: “Now show me yours.”)
McCarthy unveiled his GOP
plan wherein he says it will trim more than $4 trillion from deficits over the
next decade, largely by freezing discretionary spending at the 2022 levels and
increasing them by just 1% a year thereafter.
Recall that in his “State of the Union” address in January that
Mr. Biden indicated he would engage in form of talks as soon as and once the
Republicans laid out their budget proposal.
Director Young argues in her analysis that McCarthy's budget caps mask the full extent of the likely cuts, and that they would compound over time in ways that she said would harm millions of U.S. households.
The White House's own budget proposal offers
nearly $3 trillion in deficit savings, mainly through higher taxes on the
wealthy and corporations.
Young writes in the draft: “The legislation Congressional
Republicans have drafted is designed to avoid leveling with the American people
about how these cuts would impact their lives. This bill is vague by design —
but that doesn’t obscure the fact that it will force devastating cuts that will
hurt millions of people, damage our economy and undermine our national
security.”
By not spelling out specific cuts, Republicans are able to
potentially minimize a backlash to their plan. McCarthy's proposal would raise
the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion into March 2024 in exchange for a long list
of Republican priorities:
1. A
1% limit to future spending increases.
2. Guts
Biden’s signature climate change funds.
3. Cancels
up to $20,000 per person in student loan forgiveness.
4. Imposes
work requirements and raises age to get government assistance (e.g., cutting SNAP:
formerly food stamp program, and WIC: aid designed especially for women and
children).
The president and Congress need to reach some sort of agreement on raising the $31 trillion debt cap this summer, when and before the “extraordinary steps taken by the Treasury Department would be exhausted and the government could default on its payments” (on bills due and need to be paid).
Given that Republicans have indicated that they will protect
defense spending. Director Young estimates that domestic programs would be cut
by 22% under the GOP plan. Social Security and Medicare — programs expected to
drive up the national debt long term — are shielded from any reductions.
At that reduced level
of funding, there would be:
1. 30
million fewer veteran outpatient visits.
2. 81,000
jobs lost across the VA.
3. The
GOP cuts would be borne by 25 million students in schools that teach poorer
children; students with disabilities; and all that could lead to the loss of
108,000 teacher and classroom aide jobs.
4. Fewer
than 200,000 fewer children enrolled in Head Start.
5. Some
180,000 would lose access to child care.
6. Roughly
1.7 million women, infants, and children (WIC) would lose vital nutrition
assistance through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program (SNAP).
7. More
than a million seniors would lose access to food programs such as “Meals on
Wheels.”
8. There
would be 630,000 poorer families who would lose their access to housing
vouchers.
9. And
just months after a Norfolk Southern train derailment in Ohio led to GOP
criticism of the Biden administration, there would be 7,000 fewer rail safety
inspections, the analysis contends.
Same story other related
sources:
1. Biden rejects McCarthy’s debt-limit plan
2. Biden slams McCarthy, tells him to “take default off the table” in debt ceiling debate
3. Centrists float fallback plan if Biden-McCarthy debt limit talks falter
My 2 Cents: McCarthy’s GOP plan is in a word: No plan, and this
part stated above certainly irks him and the entire GOP base about the White House budget proposal: “It offers nearly $3 trillion in deficit savings, mainly through higher
taxes on the wealthy and corporations.”
The GOP hates higher or
most taxes on the upper class – a known fact, cite the 2017 Trump tax cut that
favored the top earners and many in Congress – cite this from VOX.com at the time:
“As part of that tax cut
bill, Republicans approved tax breaks for seven classes of assets many of the
wealthier members of Congress held at the time, including partnerships, small
corporations, real estate, and several esoteric investment vehicles.
“While they sold the bill
as a package of business and middle-class tax cuts that would not help the
wealthy, the cuts likely saved members of Congress hundreds of thousands
of dollars in taxes collectively, while the corporate tax cut hiked the value
of their holdings.”
Yep the same old, same old
GOP – they never give up on helping the top rung, and now the same old top rung.
I wonder why (wink, wink) how about we call it the “I’ll scratch you back, you give to my PAC.” For our reelection –
kind of a legal, sort of, quid pro quo, right? Okey dokey, then. Just that
simple.
Now here we are again at the juncture of raising the national debt ceiling / or defaulting on bills already due.
Thanks for stopping by.
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