HuffPo: A Frightening "Roadmap" for America in the Republican Rebuttal to the State of the Union

[highplainsdem]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-jan-schakowsky/a-frightening-roadmap-for_b_813013.html

Rep. Jan Schakowsky
Congresswoman from Illinois
Posted: January 24, 2011 10:48 AM

A Frightening "Roadmap" for America in the Republican Rebuttal to the State of the Union


If part of you clings to that vision of an America where opportunity for all is possible or if you believe that it's time to take the somewhat tarnished American Dream out of cold storage, then be prepared to be deeply disappointed -- frightened even -- by Republican Representative Paul Ryan's response to President Obama's State of the Union Address. Ryan is the newly crowned Chairman of the House Budget Committee who was given control over how the House of Representatives allocates funding. His Republican colleagues voted in January to give him unilateral, unprecedented authority to set spending limits for everything from defense to education.

I served with Rep. Ryan on the 18 member Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, and learned firsthand from the personally congenial Ryan just how dark his vision of America's future is for all but the super-rich.

-snip-

We don't know exactly what Ryan will say in his response to the president. But we do know plenty about what this self-proclaimed budget hawk has already said. He laid it all out in a document he calls "A Roadmap for America's Future." In it was his simple plan for health care reform: destroy Medicare as we know it by giving seniors a fixed dollar voucher and sending them off to find an insurance company that will cover them. That's after raising the age of Medicare eligibility. He also revives the discredited idea of privatizing Social Security and raising the retirement age. Good luck, Grandma!

-snip-

There are big winners in Paul Ryan's "Roadmap" and you can guess who they are. He would cut taxes for the wealthy, completely eliminate the corporate income tax, and create a value added tax. According to the Tax Policy Center, his plan would raise taxes for the bottom 95 percent of American wage earners and cut taxes for the top five percent. The top 0.1 percent would see an average tax cut of $1.7 million -- every year!

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[dembotoz]

1. yep he is a tool

i know we are supposed to turn it down and be nice nice.

but paul ryan is just a #%^#@$%@!%@%^@#$%@!#%@^tool.

There is toned it down i did not use the real words.

[JaneQPublic]

2. A Roadmap from the folks who drove the country into the ditch.

That's rich.

[kestrel91316]

3. Well, all we have to do is give the repukes what they want and everything will be fine.

"Bipartisanship" will save us. "Bipartisanship" = give the other side everything they want and sigh about how necessary "compromise" is.