The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes that:
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget plan would get about two-thirds of its more than $4 trillion in budget cuts over 10 years from programs that serve people of limited means, which violates basic principles of fairness and stands a core principle of President Obama’s fiscal commission on its head.
The plan of Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, who co-chaired President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, established, as a basic principle, that deficit reduction should not increase poverty or inequality or hurt the disadvantaged. The Ryan plan, which the chairman unveiled in a news conference, speech, and Wall Street Journal op-ed today, charts a different course, turning its biggest cannons on these people. …
Cuts in low-income programs appear likely to account for at least $2.9 trillion — or about two-thirds — of this amount. The $2.9 trillion includes the following three categories of cuts (click to enlarge chart)
$2.17 trillion in reductions from Medicaid and related health care
$350 billion in cuts in mandatory programs serving low-income Americans (other than Medicaid
$400 billion in cuts in low-income discretionary programs.
The Episcopal Public Policy Network (EPPN) has two actions you can take on its web site:
1. Oppose cuts in programs for the most vulnerable Americans. Click here.
The Congress is poised to vote on H.R. 1 which would further weaken the safety net for poor and working poor families with devastating cuts in programs that help those struggling to meet their basic needs of food, clothing, housing, and health care. Tell your member to vote NO on H.R. 1, which includes the largest one-year cut in programs that provide support to the poorest and most vulnerable Americans.
2. Oppose cuts to employment and training services programs. Click here.
The U.S House of Representatives has proposed to decimate employment and training services programs that have helped millions of Americans suffering during the recent economic recession. The Senate has an opportunity to prevent those cuts from becoming law.