And worst of all, [the Republican budget] is a vision that says even though Americans can’t afford to invest in education at current levels, or clean energy, even though we can’t afford to maintain our commitment on Medicare and Medicaid, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy. Think about that.
In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90 percent of all working Americans actually declined. Meanwhile, the top 1 percent saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. That’s who needs to pay less taxes?
They want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that’s paid for by asking 33 seniors each to pay $6,000 more in health costs. That’s not right. And it’s not going to happen as long as I’m President.
And I thought: Thank God.
Thank God someone is finally talking sense to the American people. Since when did America abandon its Judeo-Christian tradition for Paul Ryan's "Robin Hood-in-Reverse" approach? (Or, "Bizarro Robin Hood," as they might have said on "Seinfeld?")
I could understand if the Republicans were saying, "The United States is broke; we have to cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Defense. We simply have no choice."
But that's not what Paul Ryan and the Republicans said.
They're saying, "The long-term debt picture of the United States does not look good. Therefore, we have to make some changes. Medicare and Medicaid will be dramatically transformed. (The resulting savings, rather than used to pay down the debt, will be transferred directly to the rich in new tax cuts that go way beyond the Bush tax cuts.)
That is not a deficit reduction plan. It's a scheme to take a trillion dollars from the weakest citizens in our society and give it to the strongest.
And do you know what? The president is correct -- that's not right. That's not how any of us were brought up. We were taught to "Love your neighbor," not "Screw your neighbor."
How did we -- as a people -- get so lost?
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