Low-Income Programs Would Bear the Brunt of Ryan Cuts

Most of the cuts in House Budget Committee Paul Ryan’s new budget would come from programs serving lower-income Americans, a new CBPP report finds.  Here’s the opening:

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget plan would get at least 62 percent of its $5.3 trillion in nondefense budget cuts over ten years (relative to a continuation of current policies) from programs that serve people of limited means.  This stands a core principle of President Obama’s fiscal commission on its head and violates basic principles of fairness.

Not much has changed on this front from Chairman Ryan’s fiscal year 2012 budget plan released a year ago.  Then, too, Chairman Ryan proposed massive spending cuts, the bulk of which were in programs that serve low- and moderate-income Americans.  (Compared with last year’s plan, the cuts in low-income programs are larger in dollar terms but slightly smaller as a share of the total cuts.)

Click here for the full report.