e to the GOP's success in turning last year's health care law into "Obamacare," let's call this proposal Ryancare -- and let's make sure we look carefully at its impact on the elderly and the disabled, the main beneficiaries of Medicaid.
Put the two parts of the Ryan design together -- tax cuts for the rich, program cuts for the poor -- and its radically redistributionist purposes become clear. Timid Democrats would never dare embark on class warfare on this scale the other way around.
But while I am assailing his ideas, let me put in a good word about Ryan himself: He is, from my limited experience, a charming man who truly believes what he believes. I salute him for laying out the actual conservative agenda. Here's hoping he is transparent in the coming weeks about whom he is taking benefits from, and toward whom he wants to be more generous. If he thinks we need an even more unequal society to prosper in the future, may he have the courage to say so.
The other clue as to where conservatives are going was the Senate Republicans' so-called balanced budget amendment, announced last Thursday. I usually resist the term "so-called," but it's appropriate here because this amendment is not about balancing the budget. It is about eviscerating government.
And it's not even honest on its own terms. It says federal outlays should not exceed 18 percent of gross domestic product without a two-thirds vote in Congress. But the words in the amendment say this number would be calculated on the basis of "the calendar year endingbefore the beginning of such fiscal year" -- my emphasis -- meaning it delays taking into account economic growth.
The result, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, would be to limit federal spending to about 16.7 percent of GDP.
And when was the last time federal spending was that low? In 1956, the center reports, when "Medicare and Medicaid did not exist and millions of workers ... were excluded from Social Security." Oh yes, and we didn't have much federal aid to education then, or most of our environmental protection initiatives, or "basic programs to ease poverty and hardship such as Supplemental Security Income for the elderly and disabled poor, food stamps, and the Earned Income Tax Credit."
One other thing: The amendment would require a two-thirds majority to raise taxes, giving a right-wing minority veto power over any tax increases. Goodbye, majority rule.
This is all extreme and irresponsible stuff. The president knows it. The coming week will test who he is. When Ryan releases his budget, will the president finally engage?
"This is our time," Obama liked to say during the 2008 campaign. This most certainly is his time to stand up for the vision of a practical, progressive government that he once advanced so eloquently.
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