Ryan Plan Leads to More Deficits, Bigger Debt
Paul Krugman shows that the new GOP budget plan by Paul Ryan is fundamentally more voodoo economics.
“The Ryan proposal trumpets the results of an economic projection from the Heritage Foundation, which claims that the plan’s tax cuts would set off a gigantic boom. Indeed, the foundation initially predicted that the G.O.P. plan would bring the unemployment rate down to 2.8 percent — a number we haven’t achieved since the Korean War. After widespread jeering, the unemployment projection vanished from the Heritage Foundation’s Web site, but voodoo still permeates the rest of the analysis.
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“A large part of the supposed savings from spending cuts would go, not to reduce the deficit, but to pay for tax cuts. In fact, the budget office finds that over the next decade the plan would lead to bigger deficits and more debt than current law.
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“Privatizing Medicare does nothing, in itself, to limit health-care costs. In fact, it almost surely raises them by adding a layer of middlemen.
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“By 2030 the value of a voucher would cover only a third of the cost of a private insurance policy equivalent to Medicare as we know it. So the plan would deprive many and probably most seniors of adequate health care.
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“Of the $4 trillion in spending cuts he proposes over the next decade, two-thirds involve cutting programs that mainly serve low-income Americans.
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2 thoughts on “Ryan Plan Leads to More Deficits, Bigger Debt”
“The Ryan plan for privatizing Medicare, which Samuelson smiles upon as a step forward, would add more than $20 trillion (more than $60,000 per person) to the cost of buying Medicare equivalent policies over the program’s 75-year planning horizon. This $20 trillion is not the savings to the government from paying less for retirees’ Medicare. This is the pure waste associated with establishing a more inefficient system of health care.”
Dean Baker: “Robert Samuelson Underestimates Dependence on the Government“
The astounding thing about the budget debate is that both sides of the “debate” agree that the spending should be cut now. They’re just quibbling about what should be cut and by how much.
This shows that conservative illiteracy dominates the narrative.
In fact, this is not the right time to cut spending.
Taxes on the rich should be increased. Loopholes allowing corporations to pay no taxes should be closed.
A massive jobs program should be undertaken using revenue gleaned from tax increases on the richest 1%, who have yet to pay their fair share.