The Great Awakening-In God We Trust
GOP Fiscal Plan would Freeze Fed Pay
GOP's fiscal plan would freeze fed pay for 5 years
Federal workers would endure a five-year pay freeze and the federal workforce would be cut 10 percent through attrition under the new House Republicans' 10-year budget plan announced Tuesday.
In addition, federal health programs for seniors, the poor and people with disabilities would be slashed and radically transformed.
The plan, criticized by Democrats before it was released, also would cut Social Security, defense and domestic spending to reduce federal deficits by $4.4 trillion over 10 years. Overall, federal spending would be reduced by nearly $6 trillion.
While the plan is likely to win passage in the Republican-controlled House, it will run into a roadblock in the Democratic Senate, where a bipartisan group of lawmakers is seeking a compromise approach. The White House is hoping those talks yield results.
The GOP's attack on government red ink would be achieved without any increase in taxes. The plan calls for reducing the top individual and corporate tax rates to 25 percent from their current 35 percent levels — and paying for that by wiping out some special-interest tax breaks.
Produced by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the plan takes an ax to the three entitlement programs that are at the root of the government's fiscal imbalance: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. It also defunds and repeals the health care law signed by President Obama last year.
The proposal is being released as Congress and the White House continue to negotiate over $33 billion in spending cuts needed to seal the 2011 budget. They face a midnight Friday deadline to avoid a partial government shutdown, which last occurred 15years ago.
"The new House Republican majority will introduce a budget that moves the debate from billions in spending cuts to trillions," Ryan said in a column published in today's edition of The Wall Street Journal.
Dubbed "The Path to Prosperity," the plan was criticized by Democrats such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for cutting deeply into New Deal and Great Society programs.
Ryan's plan is much tougher on deficits and debt than the budget Obama unveiled in February. It's more dramatic, even, than the plan produced by a bipartisan fiscal commission, which recommended in December nearly $4 trillion in spending cuts and tax increases over 10 years.
In addition to the five-year federal employee wage freeze and 10 percent cut in the workforce, other highlights of the GOP plan include:
• Starting in 2022, new Medicare beneficiaries would choose a private health plan, and the federal government would subsidize the cost. Low-income recipients and those with greater health risks would get extra help. The approach is modeled after Medicare's prescription drug program.
• Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor, would be turned into a block grant to states, just as welfare was in 1996, and cut by $750 billion over the decade. Similar changes would be made to the federal food stamps program, and housing programs for the poor would be transformed to emphasize work.
• Domestic programs would be reduced below 2008 levels for the next five years. That's a lower threshold, for a longer period of time, than the cuts Obama proposed in February.
• Defense would be cut by $78 billion — $100 billion less than the cuts recommended by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
• New spending caps would be instituted, enforced by the threat of automatic, across-the-board cuts. This approach was used in the 1980s and ‘90s to help reduce deficits.
"Americans truly face a monumental choice — a choice that can no longer be avoided," the GOP budget says. "This generation's defining moment has arrived."
In an e-mail Tuesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's office says the GOP's "rhetoric doesn't match reality." The Democratic leader contends the "paths" as outlined by Ryan will eliminate guaranteed benefits for seniors on Medicare, reduce support for low-income people and those with disabilities on Medicaid, and cut education benefits.
Richard Wolf and Catalina Camia report for USA Today.
Some comments from Federal employees to this article:
If Federal Pay is frozen, then freeze health insurance and income tax rates. The current Congress is full of fools and just plain knuckleheads.
How can anyone with a logical mind CUT the things that the poor and lower class need to survive AND LOWER THE TAX RATE ON THE WEALTHY 1% AND CORPORATIONS? What is wrong with these people? I have worked very hard with little to NO recognition for the federal government for 35 years, I am used to being given little to no praise or reward; but the working class poor in this country barely feed themselves let alone have dental or medical care!!! They can't find any jobs that are full time or paying more than minimum wage and that is IF they find those types of jobs. If these GOP people blackmail and get what they want, they and their wealthy corporate friends will be very happy. I will be so disappointed (more than I am now) in our nation; and worried about how the poor working class and middle class majority will manage.
4/5/2011 12:15:33 PM
Replying to jyoung56:How can anyone with a logical mind CUT the things that the poor and lower class need to survive AND LOWER THE TAX RATE ON THE WEALTHY 1% AND CORPORATIONS? I couldn't agree with you more...where are we as a nation headed? Doesn't the writ on the Statue of Liberty read: feed the hungry, house the poor..it should read by today's standard: cut off the hand that feeds our hungry and foreclose on the poor SOB's. I'm ashamed of my country's leadership..Congress,Senate, and Judicial committee's.
4/5/2011 1:00:47 PM
Excellent points! If you're not wealthy or a religious zealot, the Republican couldn't care less
4/5/2011 12:43:09 PM
Where are all the Americans with brains at! The Republicans drove us into the ground under the Bush 2 presidency. President Obama has been trying to right the country over the last two years by digging us out of a deep hole. Now the new Republican House majority wants to reverse many positive gains and drive us down an even darker hole. I've a retired Vet and am embarrased by the Republican leadership. We are truly on the path to becoming a 2nd rate country on the World Stage. People let's make a change and throw the bums out of office. I'm not a Democrat, Independent, nor Republican.....I'm an American first and foremost.
4/5/2011 12:40:21 PM
Speaking of knuckleheads!!
DD
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