How much will Romney really slash the budget?
Mitt Romney is proposing deep spending cuts that would cap federal spending at 20 percent GDP. That means slashing Social Security benefits and pushing 2.6 million additional Americans into poverty.
Mitt Romney is proposing deep spending cuts that would cap federal spending at 20 percent GDP. That means slashing Social Security benefits and pushing 2.6 million additional Americans into poverty.
My CBPP colleagues have crunched some important numbers documenting the impact of Gov Romney鈥檚 fiscal plans.聽 To me, their piece is the latest example of a truism in this biz: it鈥檚 easy to brag about how deeply you鈥檙e going cut if you stay up in the clouds; when you get down to earth鈥ot so much.
The Gov鈥檚 problem starts with his proposal to cap federal spending at 20% of GDP (i.e., he could go lower, but he won鈥檛 go higher) and at the same time, increase defense spending to no less than 4% of the economy.
That leaves鈥m鈥et me see鈥arry the naughts鈥hh鈥擨鈥檝e got it!: 16% of GDP for everything else!
As Jon Cohn pointed out last week, this implies massive spending cuts.聽 From our report:
What do such cuts mean to actual people?聽 Well, cutting Social Security benefits by 17% by 2016 would reduce the average monthly benefit from $1,230 to $1,020 and push more than 2.6 million additional people into poverty.聽 But Gov Romney has said he wants to protect current retirees and those 55 and up (like me!) from such cuts.聽 Doing so would push that 17% to 24%, and put Medicaid and Medicare right in the crosshairs:
As you see, such proposals may look pretty from the clouds, but on the ground, they provide a stark reminder of just what鈥檚 at stake in the forthcoming election.