The Republicans keep repeating the lie that the Democrats don’t have a plan to balance the budget, but they do, and it is a surprisingly good and balanced plan. Not only does it do all of the things listed in the above comic, it eliminates the deficit in 10 years. This is way faster than the Republican plan, and it does it without destroying Medicare (in fact, it strengthens Medicare and Social Security).
But don’t take my word for it. The Economist calls it “courageous” as does Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman. The Guardian says “the most fiscally responsible in town … would balance the books by 2021”. And Forbes Magazine says “instead of gutting programs for the poor like Medicaid and Medicare, food stamps, and the new healthcare law, the People’s Budget focuses on cuts in defense. It also doesn’t scrap new financial regulations designed to at least partly stave off another massive financial collapse like the one that put us in this mess in the first place.” You can read an independent analysis of the Democratic plan here.
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So what’s this have to do with Charlie Sheen, Anthony Wiener and Dancing With The Stars???
I’m willing to bet not even MSNBC has covered this budget.
Isn’t this the second time around on “Irony?”
I’m sure I’ve seen it no where else, except on my Facebook page after I posted it andeveryone ignored it. Ah yes, to live in a Plutocracy.
Dan, it was discussed in the comments of a post — https://www.politicalirony.com/2011/06/14/the-beast-2/
I was waiting until a good comic came along on the same topic to post it on its own.
Looking at their GDP number, which they don’t provide for obvious reasons but can be determined by dividing Receipts in dollars by Receipts as a % of GDP in table S-1 (pg 31), they have the economy growing at an average rate of 4.6%, (avg since 1973 is 2.7). They generate this awesome growth by increasing taxes by 50% (as a % of GDP, table S-1 again).
Nothing motivates the rich to invest or the poor to work like taking away the gains of the one and just handing it to the other.
@Michael – the Ryan budget plan assumes even higher GDP growth (over 5%) to cover the shortfall of cutting taxes for the rich even more than they are now (a 60 year historic low).
Nothing motivates the rich to invest or the poor to work like cutting critical services and making everyone have to earn more just to stay even, and making the best investment opportunities be overseas.
Bottom line, neither plan would work as written. At least the Democratic plan distributes the burdens more fairly and still tries to support the middle class, which can not be said about the Republican plan.