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2012 presidential election, class warfare, mitt romney, path to prosperity, paul ryan, paul ryan abortion, paul ryan deficit hawk, paul ryan fiscal conservative, paul ryan personhood, republican party, republican vice president, ryan budget
On Wednesday, I posted the benefits of Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate. I will now analyze the negatives of the Ryan pick.
The most discussed negative for Ryan politically is his “Path to Prosperity” budget. If you are taking the time to read this post, you already know the details of the budget, so I’m not going to spend too much time explaining it. In short, the budget ends Medicare as we know it, turning it into a voucher program. This does not happen immediately but will go into effect for those eligible for Medicare in ten years. Medicare funding would not keep up with the rising costs of healthcare, leading to less coverage for seniors in an attempt to close the deficit. The budget would also turn Medicaid into a block grant, drastically cut SNAP and TANF benefits for the poor, and reduce spending on infrastructure. Despite claiming that all of these cuts are to reduce the deficit, the Ryan budget also includes large tax cuts, – especially for the rich – and increases defense spending. It would also completely eliminate any tax on capital gains. The Atlantic calculated that Romney would pay have paid 0.82 percent tax rate under Ryan’s plan.
In Congressional elections, Republicans such as Scott Brown, Dean Heller, Linda McMahon, Denny Rehberg, and Chris Collins have run away from the toxic budget in their competitive races. Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Hochul’s victory in New York in 2011 is largely credited to voter displeasure with the Ryan budget. Americans like Medicare and social services, and they do not want to see these programs cut in order to give more tax breaks to the wealthy.