Republican “pledge”: kill jobs, give money to rich

In order to provide new tax cuts for the very rich, the Republican Party has proposed to gut investment in job creation, education and basic human needs for working families. According to a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute released this week, the Republican Party’s plan would kill as many as 1.1 million jobs.

Republicans claim their goal is to reduce the federal deficit. However, data analyzed by EPI reveals that, at best, despite the massive job-killing cuts, the GOP proposal reduces the federal deficit by a mere 5 percent.

According to the Republican plan, to achieve this meager goal without doing away with tax cuts for the rich, non-military spending would have to be slashed by some $350 billion.

The EPI notes that such steps “would result in drastic and politically unrealistic cuts to many human needs and investment programs.” Say “goodbye” to investments in expanding broadband access, research and development in clean energy alternatives, improved healthcare infrastructure, improved roads and bridges, new mass transit, improvements in waste management, environmental cleanup, higher quality education, additional community health centers, and anti-poverty protections for unemployed workers and their families.

While the GOP plan would deliver this harsh blow to working families, it would add some $629 billion to the deficit in order to provide new tax cuts for the richest 2 percent of Americans.

By increasing the deficit to pay for a tax cut for the richest Americans, EPI found, the Republican Party’s plan would offset savings accrued by gutting programs for working families.

In addition, using data from the Congressional Budget Office, the policy institute found that the GOP would put at risk the economic recovery by shrinking the GDP by at least 1.1 percent.

Because tax cuts for the rich is “the lowest bang for the buck” stimulus plan, it would simply fail to offset jobs lost due to shrinking government investments in the areas listed above.

Simply put, the Republican Party’s plan to give tax cuts for the rich is at the expense of working families and would result in a net loss of 1.1 million jobs.

So far the Republicans have refused to get specific about what they would cut. They have refused to do so because they know their ideas would meet massive public resistance. But their proposal for “across the board spending cuts” would mean eliminating schools, roads, railroads, sewers, hospitals, community health centers, energy improvements, and research that would improve our lives, strengthen the economy, and modernize the country.

All in the name of benefiting a handful of rich people.

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