Boehner Plan Seen As "Class Warfare" By Nonpartisan Group

By Gabrielle Pfafflin

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a bipartisan organization that considers the effects of fiscal policy changes on low-income Americans, released a statement Wednesday dismissing House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) latest deficit reduction plan as an example of “class warfare.”

After analyzing the proposal, the Center found that Boehner’s plan eradicates health care expansions, severely cuts Social Security benefits for current retirees, and eliminates the social safety-net, “for low-income children, parents, senior citizens, and people with disabilities.”

According to Robert Greenstein, the President of the CBPP, “[the plan] could well produce the greatest increase in poverty and hardship produced by any law in modern U.S. history.”

He found that the majority of the blame would result from a special committee that would be run by appointed Republicans. This committee’s purpose would be to rifle through entitlement programs for approximately $1.8 trillion in spending cuts over the next 10 years, while making tax increases off limits.

Boehner, reportedly, told conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh today that if the committee proposed any tax increases, “House Republicans would vote it down anyway.”

Although most budget proposals would make minor cuts in Social Security and Medicare, while emphaisizing budget cuts “across the board,” no other proposed plan would reportedly create such drastic poverty figures within the U.S.

Greenstein summarized, “the Boehner plan would essentially force policymakers to choose among cutting the incomes and health benefits of ordinary retirees, repealing the guts of health reform and leaving an estimated 34 million more Americans uninsured, and savaging the safety net for the poor — or letting the nation default early next year.”