Paul Ryan vs. Your Grandmother: A Beginner’s Guide to Ryan’s Budget and Why it is Shockingly Stupid

Paydon Miller
Undergraduate/Political Science & Print Journalism

This past week, Congressman Paul Ryan (who I hesitate to point out is from Wisconsin) has rocketed to the forefront of the national budgetary debate. Anointed as the whiz kid with the poured-from-a-Jello-mold hair that would save the country from its impending doom, Ryan has produced a budget that he insists will save America’s future by cutting nearly $4 trillion from our national budget.

Sounds sexy, right? I admit, it certainly sounds great to slash huge amounts of money from the budget. It’s always easy to approve of cutting spending when its such a huge number that it fails to have any real meaning.

So what does it mean? Fear not, reader. I will be your ferryman down the financial river Styx1.

First, let me say that I do not mock Ryan’s attempt to be a leader on the issue, nor do I fault him for taking the initiative. I do, however, mock him for literally everything else.

Now, let’s acknowledge that every cut will harm a certain number of people. You cut food stamps, poor people eat less. You cut funding to the post offices, people get mail slower. And so on. That’s not to say all cuts are bad. We just have to consider who can take the harm brought by cuts and still be able to make ends meet.

For Ryan, the answer is the elderly and the poor.

Ryan’s plan would effectively end Medicare, the very program that likely helps your grandparents pay for their diabetes medicine, blood pressure pills and other medication that helps them…you know…stay alive2. Instead, the elderly would get the first $15,000 in premiums covered.

You know what’s really expensive? Being not dead. And seeing as healthcare costs are going to grow much faster than money provided to your Nana, we’ll see the elderly front more of the burden as time goes on.

See, Ryan is banking on the fact that no one connects the dots between what the numbers say and what the real world implications will be. That’s why Ryan loves to toss around numbers (often skirting questions about specifics in the plan) and using comically large charts on the House floor, like some exaggerated chart makes it acceptable that we’re burdening one of our country’s most vulnerable groups more than we need.

Medicaid is also going on the chopping block. Serving roughly 60 million Americans per year, Medicaid helps the poor, disabled and elderly pay for their medical bills. Over half of the people covered on Medicaid are children, and a major chunk of the Medicaid dollar goes to helping those with disabilities3. Ryan’s plan would cut $1 trillion from Medicaid over the next decade.

On top of all this, we’re seeing a tax cut for the top income earners in the country. You’re reading that right – we’re putting more burden on the people with the least amount of money while giving yet more money to the people with the most. Does this strike anyone as completely backwards?

While I won’t go off on a tirade about how the highest income earners already got a huge and unneeded handout with the extension of the Bush era tax cuts, one has to consider this a travesty. Tax cuts cost us money, not earn us money. It ADDS to our deficit. Yet we’re comfortable taking money away from the people who may have to decide if they want food or medicine this week in favor of people who have to decide whether gilding their yacht would be lavish.

Thankfully, though this budget has passed the House, it will likely be dead on arrival in the Senate. Frustrating as the Senate has been in the previous couple of years, it will be a check on Ryan’s ridiculous budget, forcing him back to the place I lovingly refer to as “reality.”

There are some analysts who say Ryan just offered this budget as a starting point for the debate, forcing the Democrats to the right, so when the two parties compromise, it is naturally cocked off to the right more than it would have been had the GOP offered a less ridiculous budget. While that may be a piece of the puzzle, do not underestimate Paul Ryan’s love of the spotlight. This man is soaking in the praise from the right for making the “hard choices,” and, given his blatant presidential aspirations, he needs to continue basking in it.

Another analyst says that Ryan offered this budget as a rallying call to the GOP who, with all the competing factions in the ranks, are in a state of perpetual disarray. “Here’s what we stand for!” was the message of this budget to the Congresspeople. While I don’t know if that was the intention of the budget, that’s exactly what it says to the public.

HERE is what the GOP stands for, folks. Cuts to the programs that help the elderly, poor, disabled and children. Perks for the wealthiest, driving up the constantly growing gap between the rich and the poor. Thanks for clearing that up for us, Congressman Ryan.

Again, this article is not me saying that we don’t need cuts at all. We absolutely need cuts in spending. But we don’t need them on the backs of the Americans who are already struggling to make ends meet while we give yet another tax cut to CEOs, bankers and stock brokers who already do not pay their fair share of taxes. This is a matter of who we stand with, and now we see who Paul Ryan and the GOP side with when push comes to shove.

1This may be my lamest attempt at humor ever. May you all forgive me.
2http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576240751124518520.html
3http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/86127/ryan-gop-medicaid-block-grant-cut