Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–March 20, 2012. The budget proposed today by House Republicans is a blueprint of what our country would look like under their control – a government of, by, and for the 1%. There’s nothing courageous about worsening the imbalance in our economy by protecting only the wealthiest, most powerful people and corporations. And there’s nothing courageous about cutting Social Security and Medicare for seniors in order to cut taxes for the super-wealthy.
House Republicans have dropped all pretenses and laid out their plan to destroy Medicare and Social Security. This plan would end Medicare as we know it and shift the health care cost burden to seniors, and it endorses significant cuts in Social Security benefits for middle class seniors. Strengthening critical programs like Social Security and Medicare is a key part of the solution, not the problem. Our country should value each person’s contributions and hard work.
The Republican plan would not only keep Bush tax cuts for the wealthy from expiring, but would actually cut taxes for rich people even further. We learned from the Bush administration that cutting taxes for rich people does not create jobs. In fact, the Republican plan would compound the jobs crisis by reducing funding for surface transportation by a third – a surefire way to destroy even more good jobs.
This is not shared sacrifice. Corporations don’t pay their fair share of taxes today, yet Republicans want to cut their rates further and spare them from having to contribute their fair share to deficit reduction. The Republican plan would throw even more money away by giving multinational corporations massive new tax breaks to encourage them to export U.S. jobs overseas.
We simply cannot afford to go back to the failed economic policies that caused the Great Recession, which is what this Republican budget plan would do. Working people overwhelmingly rejected Rep. Ryan and Republican leaders’ last irresponsible budget proposal and will resoundingly reject them again.
Source: aflcio.org
