President Obama recently
referred to Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan, “Pathway to Prosperity”, as social
Darwinism, in the sense that the plan rewards the rich and leaves the poor and
middle class to fend for themselves. Republicans reject this idea, saying the
president is mischaracterizing the plan.
Howard Gleckman, a former
Business Week reporter who is now a resident fellow at the Urban Institute,
reviewed TPC’s analysis of Ryan’s plan. The Tax Policy Center is a joint
project of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. Gleckman says Ryan’s
plan “would result in huge benefits for high-income people and very modest – or
no – benefits for low income working households.”
Gleckman, March 23: TCP found
that in 2015, relative to today’s tax system, those making $1 million or more
would enjoy an average tax cut of $265,000 and see their after tax income increase by 12.5 percent.
By contrast, half of those making between $20,000 and $30,000 would get no tax
cut at all.
Catherine Poe, a writer for
the conservative Washington Times, in an April 4, 2012 article examines Rep.
Ryan’s “Pathway to Prosperity” plan and writes, “Here is some of what would be
decimated by these draconian cuts:
*basic research and support for defense,
energy, medicine, manufacturing, education, and communications
*education from Head Start through
college, veteran education, health care
*construction and repair of highways,
tunnels, bridges, airports, ports, waterways and infrastructure that states
can’t build or repair
*oversight of safe food and drugs
*enforcement of environmental standards to
protect and restore clean water and air
*law enforcement from the FBI to ICE to
Homeland Security.”
Social Darwinism is the
sociological aspect of Darwinism applied to a society; those who are the
greatest value to society (making over $1 million) deserve the greatest
benefits, and those who are the least value to society ($30,000, poor) deserve
the least benefit. In the case of Rep. Ryan’s plan it would mean the middle
class and poor deserve no assistance from the government at all.
I am no rocket scientist, but it appears to me
that this plan would be brutal for most Americans, usher in a caste system and
take America into its decline.
What do you think? Is Rep.
Paul Ryan’s plan social Darwinism, or just draconian?
