I try not to pay as much attention to politics over the weekend-it's how I keep my sanity-but I couldn't help but notice this when it popped in my inbox yesterday morning:
[Eric] Fehnrstrom, pressed by George Will on Romney's view of House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's budget: 'He's for the Ryan plan. He believes it goes in the right direction. … At least the Paul Ryan plan puts us on a path toward a balanced budget. It gets those annual deficits down, in a way that this president has been unable to do.'
In case you missed it, Mitt Romney's chief advisor just told a national audience that Romney is "for" the most regressive economic plan to ever come out of Congress. Remember, the actual Ryan plan-as opposed to the one described by Fehnrstrom-will reduce taxes on the wealthy Americans, add trillions to the debt, and make sharp cuts to existing social services.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, social spending accounts for nearly two-thirds of Ryan's budget cuts. Ryan would elimiate subsidies for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, and make sharp cuts to food stamps, low-income housing, Pell Grants and aid to poor women and children. What's more, over the next decade, he would cut more than $700 billion from Medicaid and convert the program into an underfunded block grant to the states.
Far from dealing with the debt, the "savings" from shredding the social safety net would fund further tax cuts for the rich; the Ryan plan would give millionaires an additional $265,000 in tax relief, on top of the $129,000 saved from the Bush tax cuts. Overall, the taxes would go down for those on the top, and increase for those on the botom:
The Ryan plan is a massive reduction in government-and a massive giveaway to rich people-that dwarfs anything proposed by George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan. There is no way in which you could plausibly describe this as "moderate." Even still, pundits will continue to identify Romney as a moderate Republican, and continue to ignore the extent to which he has promised policies which would exacerbate our current economic problems.
Why? I have no idea. For whatever reason, the national media is unconcerned with Romney's commitment to radical, right-wing economic policies. It's completely baffling.
