Friday, January 28, 2011

The Face of the New GOP

This article provides interesting background on Ryan: http://www.thenation.com/blog/158010/paul-ryan-republicans-thinker?rel=emailNation. Apparently, his idea of "fiscal responsibility" is to advocate for another great transfer of wealth from the bottom and middle to the top. Among the ideas of this acolyte of Ayn Rand:
  • Reduce tax rates, eliminate taxes on capital gains, dividends and interest, and abolish the corporate tax, the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax. (The average tax cut for the top 1 percent of the population (with incomes over $633,000) would be $280,000. The richest one-tenth of one percent, who had incomes over $2.9 million in 2009, would pocket $1.7 million a year in tax breaks.
  • Unravel employer-based healthcare plans by eliminating the tax credit.  
  • Eliminate traditional Medicare and cut Medicaid.
  • Cut $100 billion out of "non-security discretionary spending" this year - requiring cuts of 20 percent in everything from the FBI to cancer research, Pell grants for students, Head Start and grants to public school districts.
It appears "compassionate conservativism" has died a natural death and is being replaced by Social Darwinism and survival of the richest.

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