House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) unveiled his long-previewed ransom note to free the debt ceiling hostage Wednesday, a maximal list of far-right proposals that he knows are nonstarters with Democrats.
His aim in cobbling together a 320-page packet of Republicans' darkest impulses is obvious: He gets to say, and many news outlets will faithfully repeat, that now Republicans' refusal to help raise or suspend the debt ceiling is President Joe Biden's fault for not giving them what they want in return. McCarthy has been trying to make this argument without actually naming the concessions he wants from the administration for months, due to his intensely fractured caucus and small margins.
Biden would have to dismantle some of his signature legislation and executive actions, stomach punitive cuts to programs that help low-income people, sign off on a boondoggle for fossil fuel companies and hobble his agencies — but hey, in return, he'd get a debt ceiling lift or suspension for … less than one year from now! And it's set to expire just as the 2024 presidential campaign is heating up, all the better for Republicans to demand more concessions then.
We now have the document that represents the heart and soul of the House Republican caucus. Here's what made their fantasy football checklist.
Kicking The Poor In The Shins
This is the overriding theme of the legislation. From food to health care, Republicans are eager to withhold aid — often in ways proven not to work — for Americans who already struggle the most.
They're mostly going about this by adding work requirements to benefit programs (some of which already have work requirements). Having been strong-armed into taking cuts to Medicare and Social Security off the table, the Republicans focus on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) and Medicaid (government health insurance for low-income and disabled people).
The SNAP proposal would make adults without children work for longer — an earlier version of which the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated would kick 10 million people off the program, or about one-in-four current recipients.
The proposal would also subject Medicaid recipients without young children to rigorous work requirements, despite the fact that most Medicaid recipients already do work. And those who can't because they're in school or caring for a relative full time dwarf the small sliver who don't want to or can't find work. But weeding out those few comes at the low, low cost of kicking 2.2 million people off the program, largely because of the difficulty in navigating the bureaucracy to prove that they meet the work requirements, and — based on data from Arkansas, which already tried this — it also won't meaningfully improve employment!
Previous Article
Share your views...
0 Respones to "House GOP: Give Us Everything We’ve Ever Wanted And We’ll Extend The Debt Ceiling … ‘Til March"
Post a Comment