Congressional Budget Plans Get 2/3 of Cuts From Programs for People With Low to Moderate Incomes

[PastTense]

The budgets adopted on March 19 by the House Budget Committee and the Senate Budget Committee each cut more than $3 trillion over ten years (2016-2025) from programs that serve people of limited means. These deep reductions amount to 69 percent of the cuts to non-defense spending in both the House and Senate plans.

Each budget plan derives more than two-thirds of its non-defense budget cuts from programs for people with low or modest incomes even though these programs constitute less than one-quarter of federal program costs. Moreover, spending on these programs is already scheduled to decline as a share of the economy between now and 2025.

The bipartisan deficit reduction plan that Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles (co-chairs of the National Commission on Federal Policy) issued in 2010 adhered to the basic principle that deficit reduction should not increase poverty or widen inequality. The new Congressional plans chart a radically different course, imposing their most severe cuts on people on the lower rungs of the economic ladder.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=5289

I strongly oppose such changes. This society should help people at the bottom of the economic ladder.

While I think Obama’s vetos will prevent much change while he is President, I think these changes would immediately be implemented if a Republican would be elected President.

[bobot]

I had a response, but this ain’t the Pit, so I’ll keep it to myself.

[Crafter_Man]

There are some people (such as I) who believe helping people “too much” makes them lazy and dependent, and cutting these funds gives them an incentive to get a job, pay taxes, and be productive.

[Leaper]

Interesting assumption, that those funds only go to people who don’t have a job or pay taxes. Taken a look at wages and cost of living lately?