Robert Reich (The Republican Plan with Lipstick)

Robert Reich (The Republican Plan with Lipstick)

The Republican Plan with Lipstick

If you can’t sell the pig, figure Republicans, put lipstick on it and maybe no one will notice. Add some perfume and maybe you’ll even attract enough Dems to get it enacted.
A Senate proposal by Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee and Democrat Claire McCaskill of Missouri would save $7.6 trillion over 10 years. How? By capping federal spending at 20.6 percent of gross domestic product within a decade. That’s down from 24.3 percent now.
This is the Ryan plan with lipstick. The Ryan plan puts spending at 20.25 of GDP in 10 years. By comparison, spending under Republican President Ronald Reagan from 1981-1989 averaged 22 percent of GDP at a time when no baby boomers had retired.
As a result, Corker/McCaskill would have the same dire result as the Republican plan: According to an analysisby the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Corker/McCaskill would require “enormous cuts” in Medicare and Medicaid and other programs, and likely force similar policy changes to the entitlement programs that Ryan has proposed.
The reductions would total more than $800 billion in 2022 alone — which would be the equivalent of eliminating