George Miller for Congress

The House begins debate today on the Republican budget plan.  Here it is a nutshell:

• End Medicare. 
• Slash nursing home care for seniors and the disabled.
• Increase prescription drug costs for seniors.
• Cut taxes for the wealthy.
• Shovel billions in taxpayer subsidies to oil giants.
• Preserve tax incentive to corporations that ship American jobs overseas.

Sound balanced? 

Their plan isn’t fair.  It makes the wrong choices. And it doesn’t balance the budget.  It will kill jobs and weaken the economic recovery.  It puts the nation’s burdens on your back.  Liberals and conservatives alike have slammed it.

San Jose Mercury News: The Republican budget would “inflict pain solely on children, the poor, the elderly of all income levels and the disabled… [It] spares those at the upper end of the income scale from any sacrifice at all.”

AARP: “Rather than tackling skyrocketing health care costs, [it] would simply shift these costs onto the backs of people in Medicare. It would undermine Medicare’s promise of secure health coverage.”

President Reagan’s budget chief, David Stockman: Their plan “doesn’t address in any serious or courageous way the issues of the near and medium term deficit.” 

Paul Krugman of the New York Times: The GOP budget offers two things:  “Savage cuts in programs that help the needy, amounting to about $3 trillion over the next decade. Huge tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, also amounting to about $3 trillion.”

Democrats are offering our own plan, today, to reduce deficits and the debt, to reduce spending and raise revenues, like President Clinton did and created a record budget surplus.  But our budget is fair to everyone, as it should be.