Paul Ryan is
wrong. Again.
To see this video directly on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DTnCqgqYws
On
December 4, the new Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, summed up his House Republican agenda –
vowing to pursue legislation that would frame a stark choice for voters in
2016.
“Our
No. 1 goal for the next year is to put together a complete alternative to the
left’s agenda,” he said.
Despite
the speech’s sweeping oratory and careful stagecraft, Ryan clings to seven dumb
ideas that are also cropping up among Republican presidential candidates.
Here
they are, and here’s why they’re dumb:
1. Reduce the top income-tax rate to 25% from the current 39%. A terrible idea. It’s a huge windfall to the rich at a time when the rich already take home a larger share of total income that at any time since the 1920s.
2.
Cut corporate taxes to 25% from the current 35%. Another bad idea.
A giant sop to corporations, the largest of which are already socking away $2.1
trillion in foreign tax shelters.
3.
Slash spending on domestic programs like food stamps and education for poor
districts.
What?! Already 22% of the nation’s children are in
poverty; these cuts would only make things worse.
4.
Turn Medicaid and other federal programs for the poor into block grants for the
states, and let the states decide how to allocate them. In other words,
give Republican state legislatures and governors slush funds to do with as they
wish.
5.
Turn Medicare into vouchers that don’t keep up with increases in healthcare
costs. In effect cutting Medicare for the elderly. Another awful
idea.
6.
Deal with rising Social Security costs by raising the retirement age for
Social Security. Bad! This would make Social Security even more
regressive, since the poor don’t live nearly as long as the rich.
7.
Finally, let the minimum wage continue to decline as inflation eats it
away. Wrong again. Low wage workers need a higher minimum wage.
These
7 ideas will harm most Americans. Ryan is wrong.
ROBERT
B. REICH, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of
California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing
Economies, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine
named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth
century. He has written fourteen books, including the best sellers “Aftershock,
“The Work of Nations," and"Beyond Outrage." He is also a
founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
His film, INEQUALITY FOR ALL is available on Netflix, iTunes, Amazon. His new
book, "SAVING CAPITALISM: For the Many, Not the Few" is out 9/29.
