Or center cut of beef? Robert Reich:
I’d wager if Americans also knew two-thirds of Ryan’s budget cuts come from programs serving lower and moderate-income Americans and over 70 percent of the savings fund tax cuts for the rich – meaning it’s really just a giant transfer from the less advantaged to the super advantaged without much deficit reduction at all – far more would be against it.
And if people knew that the Ryan plan would channel hundreds of billions of their Medicare dollars into the pockets of private for-profit heath insurers, almost everyone would be against it.
The Republican plan shouldn’t be considered one side of a great debate. It shouldn’t be considered at all. Americans don’t want it.
Which is why I get worried when I hear about so-called “bipartisan” groups on Capitol Hill seeking a grand compromise, such as the Senate’s so-called “Gang of Six.”
Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, a member of that Gang, says they’re near agreement on a plan that will chart a “middle ground” between the House Republican budget and the plan outlined last week by the President.
Watch your wallets.
In my view, even the President doesn’t go nearly far enough in the direction most Americans would approve. All he wants to do, essentially, is end the Bush tax windfalls for the wealthy – which were designed to be ended in 2010 in any event – and close a few loopholes.
The only skin they want in the game is what’s left to peel from our backs.
