Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), Chair of the House Budget Committee, released a 2013 budget yesterday that attacks multiple advances made since President Obama first took office in 2009.
The Ryan budget would repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which prohibits insurance companies from classifying being a woman as a pre-existing medical condition and eliminated co-pays for birth control. The Ryan budget would also turn Medicare into a voucher system that would leave seniors, particularly women, struggling to get coverage. In addition, the proposed budget would restructure the way Social Security Living Adjustments are determined, threatening the stability of seniors nationwide. Paul Ryan also seeks to undo sequester cuts to the Pentagon by instead transferring the cuts to already severely impacted domestic programs.
Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi issued a statement in response to the Ryan budget. She said, “this proposal is an exercise in contradictions. Republicans repeal the Affordable Care Act while counting on the law’s savings to balance their budget. They claim to protect Medicare while devising a plan to end it for future generations. They promise opportunity for all Americans while hurting working families and protecting special interests. Put simply, the Republican budget pledges to balance our books without taking a balanced approach to deficit reduction.”
The White House also released a statement in opposition to the Ryan budget. The statement said, “while the House Republican budget aims to reduce the deficit, the math just doesn’t add up. Deficit reduction that asks nothing from the wealthiest Americans has serious consequences for the middle class. By choosing to give the wealthiest Americans a new tax cut, this budget as written will either fail to achieve any meaningful deficit reduction, raise taxes on middle class families by more than $2,000 – or both. By choosing not to ask for a single dime of deficit reduction from closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and well-connected, this budget identifies deep cuts to investments like education and research – investments critical to creating jobs and growing the middle class. And to save money, this budget would turn Medicare into a voucher program – undercutting the guaranteed benefits that seniors have earned and forcing them to pay thousands more out of their own pockets. We’ve tried this top-down approach before. The President still believes it is the wrong course for America.”
