Republicans in the US House have come up with their budget cutting ideas and guess who and what loses out? Not the rich or wealthy or corporations but pregnant women and children, childhood immunizations, assistance for blind and disabled children, legal aid for the poor, family planning, National Public Radio and public television, police hiring grants, job training grants, community health centers, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Republicans, in December, held out for and got an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. As CNN Money reported this came to $81.5 billion over 2 years. No offsetting spending reduction occurred elsewhere and now the bill starts coming due. Republicans in the House of Representatives have come up with a proposal to cut some $74 billion from the current budget.
So just who do they propose should give up the revenue lost by extending Bush tax cuts for the wealthy? None other than the people least able to help themselves in our down economy and who most need help. According to the Washington Post, the Republicans say this is necessary to create jobs.
Yet as has debated and documented, giving tax breaks to the wealthy does not stimulate the economy anywhere near what directly providing assistance to people out of work does. People with little or no money spend what they get right away and it goes into the economy. The wealthy have been shown not to spend the extra money they get.
As reported by Bloomberg.com news “rich Americans save their tax cuts instead of spending”:
Give the wealthiest Americans a tax cut and history suggests they will save the money rather than spend it.
Tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 under President George W Bush were followed by increases in the saving rate among the rich, according to data from Moody’s Analytics Inc. When taxes were raised under Bill Clinton, the saving rate fell.
So much for the benefits of a tax cut for the wealthy. Here’s some more details on what the Republicans want to cut to pay for the tax cut for the wealthy according to the Washington Post:
House Republicans sketched their vision for a smaller federal government Wednesday, proposing sharp spending cuts that would wipe out family planning programs, take 4,500 cops off the street and slice 10 percent from a food program that aids pregnant women and their babies.
Top White House priorities also would come under the knife: Key Republicans are proposing to defund President Obama’s high speed rail initiative, slash clean energy programs and gut the Office of Science by 20 percent – cuts that would deal a direct blow to Obama’s innovation agenda. They would also cut the Environmental Protection Agency by 17 percent.
Here are some more specific cuts attributed to the Associated Press in a Seattle Times article today.
Budget proposals released Wednesday by House Republicans:
Program eliminations:
AmeriCorps $373 million in 2010 budget
Police hiring grants $298 million
High-speed rail $1 billion
Family planning $317 million
Corporation for Public Broadcasting $531 million
Reductions:
Food aid to pregnant women and their children $407 million cut, or 6 percent
NASA $103 million, 1 percent
Environmental Protection Agency $1.9 billion, 18 percent
IRS $106 million, 1 percent
Legal aid for the poor $60 million, 14 percent
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention $894 million, 13 percent
Food and Drug Administration $61 million, 3 percent
Community Development Fund $600 million, 13 percent
Agricultural research $246 million, 10 percent
