The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities President Robert Greenstein responded swiftly on Tuesday when US House Speaker Paul Ryan announced his long awaited plan for combating poverty, “A Better Way: Our Vision for a Confident America,” calling it “silent on the discrepancy between [Speaker Ryan’s] call to fight poverty and the House GOP’s own budget priorities.”
Greenstein noted that Republican budget proposals “would cut programs for low- and modest-income people dramatically.” He added that the impact of these cuts on essential safety net programs “only grows when you also consider the huge tax cuts that presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has proposed.”
In March, Ryan embraced a House budget committee ten-year plan to cut $3.7 trillion from programs for low- or modest-income families. Greenstein also cited an analysis by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center that the Trump tax plan would reduce federal revenues by $9.2 trillion over the coming decade, “shrinking revenues as a share of the economy to their lowest level since 1950 — before programs like Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP (food stamps), and the Earned Income Tax Credit existed.”
Both the House budget committee plan and the Trump tax plan jeopardize the safety net programs that kept 38 million Americans out of poverty in 2014.
“Clearly, House GOP leaders’ stated interest in helping the poor contrasts sharply with their own budget,” Greenstein said.
To read Greenstein’s full statement, click here.
