Today's Cartoons and Read - The Republican Poverty and Deprivation Agenda

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(Dan Wasserman, Boston Globe)

(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

We know Republicans are engaged in a (futile) effort to send the message "We care!" about the jobless and the poor, while "deep-six-ing" programs that would alleviate their misery.  Meanwhile, Ezra Klein says "Follow the money" if you want to gauge the seriousness of Republican concern:

Follow the trail in the party’s recent budgets and what you find, hidden between appendix tables, are deep cuts to programs for the poor. That’s the inevitable consequence of Republican commitments to favored constituencies. The party promised its anti-tax wing no tax increases and lower tax rates. It promised older voters that Medicare and Social Security would not change for those over age 55. It promised defense hawks that sequestration cuts to military spending would be reversed. And it promised its tea party allies that it would cut trillions from government spending and balance the federal budget. 

The only way to square all those promises is through draconian cuts to programs for the poor. The liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that programs for lower-income Americans would account for two-thirds of proposed Republican budget savings. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that as many as 37 million Americans would lose access to Medicaid, which was targeted for hundreds of billions in cuts. 

That’s an agenda that would result in more poverty and deprivation, not less. Yet all the Republicans now talking about poverty -- Sens. Marco Rubio, Mike Lee and Rand Paul and Rep. Paul Ryan -- either voted for or, in Ryan’s case, authored these cuts.

The rest of Klein's post is worth the read.

Though none of the above comes as a shock to anyone who's followed politics in the last 40 years, it's always worth highlighting the fact that the overriding concern of the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party is, and for over a century has been, the welfare of the job creators  makers  wealthy 1 percent, a fact that eludes many of the knuckledraggers who vote their fears and prejudices rather than their economic interests.

A Budget For Lockheed and Northrup

Some of the sharpest contrasts between President Obama's budget priorities and those of the hard right and likely Rethuglican nominee, the weird Willard "Etch-A-Sketch" Romney are the Rethugs' devastating cuts proposed in domestic spending for education, health care and research, while showering the Pentagon with increased spending that has not been requested and is not necessary (except for defense contractors, of course). While Willard's budget details are, er, sketchy, he's endorsed Rep. Paul "Lyin'" Ryan's reverse Robin Hood scheme that would plunder 15% of the domestic budget to pay for new tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

Especially disturbing is the signal that the inflated military budget sends. Rethugs love to spend major money on expensive hardware (defense contractors, again) but not on body armor or veteran care. They also promote an aggressive, interventionist "bomb now, negotiate later" foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, so missiles, bombs and weapons systems are needed, despite America's waning taste for endless wars in that region. But the Rethugs need to pay off their most loyal contributors, no matter how many lives it costs.

The Rethug's Plan for a Diminished America

Harold Meyerson has a column worth reading in today's Kaplan Daily. In his column, Meyerson shows that the plan offered by Rethug budget whiz kid Paul "Lyin'" Ryan is not a budget plan, but a right-wing ideological attack on middle class Dem programs of the last century. As Meyerson says,

"The cover under which Ryan and other Republicans operate is their concern for the deficit and national debt. But Ryan blows that cover by proposing to reduce the top income tax rate to just 25 percent. He imposes the burden for reducing our debt not on the bankers who forced our government to spend trillions averting a collapse but on seniors and the poor. The reductions in aid to the poor, says the budget blueprint that Ryan released, will be made 'to ensure that America’s safety net does not become a hammock that lulls able-bodied citizens into lives of complacency and dependency.' That’s a pretty good description of America’s top bankers, but Ryan’s budget showers them with tax cuts."

Did you catch Lyin's petty dig at those lazy middle class people looking for a hammock? Why next thing you know, those Negro bucks will be jumping in their Cadillacs, getting t-bone steaks with food stamps.

It's worth noting -- even if the Beltway media avoids it -- that Lyin' Ryan's budget plan doesn't hold water in terms of the claims it makes. It's the same Rethug formula: cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations, slash regulations for environmental protection and health care, and ditch sustainable energy initiatives. What taxes that are collected come disproportionately from over-burdened middle and lower income citizens.

If America buys this repugnant con job, we're in a world of hurt.