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POLICY INSIGHT
BEYOND THE NUMBERS

Chairman Ryan’s Response to the Center’s Analysis Doesn’t Hold Water

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan took exception to our finding that 69 percent of the non-defense spending cuts in his new budget come from programs for people with low and moderate incomes.  But he makes no attempt to refute our calculations, and his response both defies logic and conflicts with his own budget and even his own words.

For starters, we derived the 69 percent figure from the cuts that Chairman Ryan displays in his budget.  We added up his cuts in mandatory and non-defense discretionary programs, calculated how much of them would apply to low- and moderate-income programs, and derived the 69 percent figure.  Chairman Ryan was explicit that his budget makes substantial cuts in various programs — like SNAP (formerly food stamps), Medicaid, Pell Grants, and health reform’s subsidies to help people afford insurance — that are targeted on people with low or moderate incomes.

Responding to the 69 percent figure, the Chairman shifted direction in a new piece that he inserted this week in the Congressional Record.  He claimed these cuts aren’t really “cuts” at all; instead, they are simply smaller spending increases than would otherwise occur.  “A smaller increase is not a spending cut,” he wrote.

Well, two problems:

First, the Chairman is trying to have it both ways.  At the very start of his “Pathway to Prosperity,” he writes, “The House Republican budget cuts spending by $5.1 trillion over the next ten years.”  Apparently, he wants to brag to congressional budget cutters that his plan cuts spending deeply, while convincing critics of his budget cuts that they aren’t really “cuts” at all.

Second, the latter argument — that a cut isn’t really a “cut” — makes little sense.  For many programs, it costs more to provide the same services for its beneficiaries from year to year, because of inflation.  In addition, the population is aging and, thus, more people qualify for programs for elderly Americans each year.  For these reasons, the cost of providing the same level of benefits and services to people who qualify rises for various programs from year to year in nominal dollars — that is, in dollars not adjusted for inflation, population growth, or the population’s aging.

A budget allocation that doesn’t cover cost increases due to these factors means either that eligible recipients will see their services or benefits cut, or that some people who would otherwise qualify for those services or benefits are turned away.

For instance, Chairman Ryan claims in the piece he inserted in the Congressional Record that his budget spends more than $3 trillion in Medicaid over the next decade, with spending rising every year starting after 2016.  But his budget would repeal the Medicaid expansions that 26 states and the District of Columbia have adopted under the Affordable Care Act, thereby returning millions of low-income people to the ranks of the uninsured.  And his budget cuts Medicaid by $732 billion on top of that, relative to what the program would otherwise cost, which translates into a 26 percent cut by 2024.  An Urban Institute analysis of a similar cut in a past Ryan budget found that it would cause 14 to 20 million additional people to lose coverage.  Just ask the millions who’d lose Medicaid and end up uninsured whether they consider that a cut.

What’s true in government is true in life.  If a worker gets a 1 percent wage increase in a year in which inflation is 5 percent, that worker has suffered a 4 percent cut in living standards.  He or she has 4 percent less to cover the costs of food, housing, health care, and other necessities. Ask that person whether he or she has suffered a cut in living standards.

We stand by our analysis.