Congressman Walden's Tea Party Determined to Put Millionaires Before Medicare & Middle Class in New Budget

In supporting this Tea Party budget, Walden is asking seniors to pay more so that millionaires pay less.

(WASHINGTON DC) - After surrendering on the debt ceiling and losing the battle over the fiscal cliff, Tea Party Republicans and Congressman Greg Walden are more determined than ever to get their way – and they are concocting their most draconian and out-of-touch budget yet. In the past two years, Congressman Paul Ryan and Tea Party Republicans passed a budget to end the Medicare guarantee and turn Medicare into a voucher. In their upcoming budget, they promise to go even further.

The AARP has warned that the previous proposal was “likely to simply increase costs for beneficiaries while removing Medicare’s promise of secure health coverage,” while the Brookings Tax Policy Center showed that people making more than $1 million a year would get a $394,000 tax cut. Just today, The Hill newspaper details that the new Tea Party-Ryan budget would “require either deeper cuts to discretionary spending or changes to Medicare that would affect people who are closer to retirement age” and the AP says that Republican “methods might include reducing future benefits for Medicare, and possibly Social Security, for people now in their late 50s, rather than those 55 and younger.”

“Only Tea Partiers and Congressman Walden could take a budget that was terrible and make it even worse for seniors, veterans and hardworking middle class families,” said Emily Bittner of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Congressman Walden needs to realize that protecting Social Security and Medicare for our seniors and veterans is vital to the people of his district – the last thing they want is an even more draconian Tea Party budget. By supporting this Tea Party budget, Congressman Walden is asking seniors to pay more so that millionaires pay less.”

· According to the Washington Post, House Speaker John Boehner “vowed that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.), the party’s 2012 vice presidential nominee, would draft a new budget blueprint that would wipe out deficits ‘within a decade.’ The austere budgets Ryan offered in years past took nearly 30 years to balance…. Balancing the budget over the next decade, however, is likely to require extraordinarily deep cuts in spending that go even further than reductions in previous House budgets. In the past, Ryan has targeted spending on health care for the poor and other social safety net programs, such as food stamps and aid for college tuition.” [Washington Post, 1/22/13]

· An analysis from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities outlines the drastic measures that a Tea Party-Ryan budget would entail. The unpalatable options include cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits and slicing all domestic spending by as much as 37 percent across-the-board, including veterans’ pensions. [Washington Post, 1/23/13]

· According to The Hill newspaper, the “GOP budget plan will likely make deeper cuts to popular government programs that any leadership-backed blueprint has before…The Speaker committed to a 10-year target on Tuesday to secure conservative backing for a short-term suspension of the debt limit. The tactic succeeded, but could backfire this spring if he cannot pass a more austere budget out of the House….The Republican-passed budget in 2012, authored by Ryan, called for steep discretionary spending cuts and an overhaul of Medicare and Medicaid, but did not reach balance until close to 2040. Moving the target up by two decades without raising taxes will require either deeper cuts to discretionary spending or changes to Medicare that would affect people who are closer to retirement age.” [The Hill, 1/24/13]