Paul Ryan’s ‘Compassionate’ Budget Would Gut The Food Safety Net http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/15/ryan-budget-no-food/The House today will vote on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) 2012 budget, his radical plan to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid while providing a healthy tax cut for the rich and corporations. Ryan’s budget has received a fair amount of criticism — and is making some House Republicans queasy — so Ryan took to the Washington Post today to defend himself:
Our budget offers a compassionate and optimistic contrast to a future of health-care rationing and unbearably high taxes. We lift the crushing burden of debt, repair the safety net, make America’s tax system fair and competitive, and ensure that our health and retirement programs have a strong and lasting future.
This so-called “compassionate” plan would double health-care costs for seniors, endanger vital Medicaid services, and likely increase taxes on the middle-class to finance tax cuts for the rich. But it would also undermine another important part of the social safety net: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps):
Converting SNAP to a block grant, as Chairman Ryan proposes to do beginning in 2015, would hurt the tens of millions of Americans who rely on the program.
SNAP would largely lose the ability to respond to rising need, forcing states during economic downturns to cut benefits or create waiting lists for needy families.