House Speaker John Boehner’s new budget proposal would require deep cuts in the years immediately ahead in Social Security and Medicare benefits for current retirees, the repeal of health reform’s coverage expansions, or wholesale evisceration of basic assistance programs for vulnerable Americans.

The plan is, thus, tantamount to a form of “class warfare.” If enacted, it could well produce the greatest increase in poverty and hardship produced by any law in modern U.S. history.

This may sound hyperbolic, but it is not. The mathematics are inexorable. …Robert Greenstein, Center for Budget and Policy Priorities

If you want a non-partisan analysis and probity, you won’t do better than Greenstein and the CBPP. And Greenstein feels strongly about Boehner’s “inexorable” math. He lays out the math and goes on to say:

… This component of the “Cut, Cap, and Balance” bill strongly suggests that, especially in the face of an approaching election, House Republicans looking for entitlement cuts would heavily target means-tested programs for people of lesser means (and less political power).

In short, the Boehner plan would 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. It would do so even as it shielded all tax breaks, including the many lucrative tax breaks for the wealthiest and most powerful individuals and corporations. …

Just hearing that reiterated by Greenstein and checking out his impeccable analysis, one has to conclude that there is a bitterness — a toxic anger — behind the GOP’s proposed policies. Those policies make no sense economically — can’t be justified on that score. They make no sense morally — far from it.

What remains makes the GOP look like an embittered, ruthless political party whose leaders and funders maim and kill for their own sick pleasure. The Breitviks of US politics.

___

A report just in from the NYT says House Republicans won’t vote for Boehner’s plan.

Conservative Republicans on Tuesday balked at House leaders’ pleas to stop whining and back their plan to slash spending and increase the nation’s borrowing ability, throwing into doubt the GOP’s proposal to rescue the nation from an unprecedented government default.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is trying to round up the votes for his plan to cut spending about $1.2 billion and extend the debt ceiling for about six months, one of two rival plans amid the struggle between President Barack Obama and Congress to settle on an elusive compromise.

Washington and the nation are staring down an Aug. 2 deadline to raise the debt limit or face national default.

Flanked by conservative colleagues, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told reporters he could not back the Boehner proposal and said it doesn’t have the votes to pass. In a two-step plan, Boehner is pressing for a vote on Wednesday and a second vote Thursday on a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.

“We think there are real problems with this plan,” said Jordan, who heads the Republican Study Group. He argued that the spending cuts are insufficient and expressed opposition to likely tax increases. ...NYT/AP

___

Poll just in.


Cross posted from the blog Prairie Weather.