THE COASTAL PACKET: GOP proposes budget that will increase poverty and deaths

Tuesday, July 18

GOP proposes budget that will increase poverty and deaths

Press Herald - House Republicans unveiled a 10-year budget blueprint that would dramatically increase military spending while putting the Republican Party on record favoring Medicare cuts opposed by President Trump.

The Republican plan, authored by Budget Chairman Diane Black, R-Tenn., would also pave the way for overhauling the U.S. tax code this fall, and would pair that effort with cuts to benefit programs such as food stamps.

Medicare is the second largest mandatory program after Social Security, and the House Republican plan again proposes to turn Medicare into a voucher-like program in which future retirees would receive a fixed benefit to purchase health insurance on the open market.

The plan, in theory at least, promises to balance the budget through unprecedented and unworkable cuts across the budget. It calls for turning this year’s projected $700 billion or so deficit into a tiny $9 billion surplus by 2027. It would do so by slashing $5.4 trillion over the coming decade, including almost $500 billion from Medicare, $1.5 trillion from Medicaid and the Obama health law, along with enormous cuts to benefits such as federal employee pensions, food stamps, and tax credits for the working poor.

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