Rep. Paul Ryan’s recent budget proposal is the latest in a slew of Republican proposals designed to mobilize an extremely vocal right-wing minority before the 2014 midterm elections. The budget aims to accomplish an impossible balancing act by cutting a total of $5 trillion in spending over the next decade while simultaneously adding $483 billion in military spending. While the budget’s draconian cuts may succeed in rallying the right-wing fringe of the Republican Party, these cuts will have the unintended consequence of providing desperately needed talking points for Democrats.
Ryan’s budget is an archconservative’s dream. Under his budget, education funding would be cut by $145 billion over 10 years. Pell grants for college students would lose $90 billion, and university students would start being charged interest on their loans while still in school. In addition, it lowers the top tax rate from 39.6 percent to 25 percent for the wealthiest taxpayers while raising taxes on middle-class families with children by an average of $2,000.
The truth about Ryan’s budget is that it will never pass in its current form. However, the budget is not just an example of Ryan’s skill in political theater. Rather, it is a blueprint of what a conservative-run U.S. government could look like. Budgets are often the best way to see a party’s priorities. Ryan’s budget was meant to give voters a choice between the status quo and his radical departure from it.
Ryan’s budget proposal comes at a difficult time for both parties. The Republican Party is attempting to rebrand itself as a party of inclusion, while the Democratic Party is attempting to repair the damage caused by Obamacare. President Barack Obama’s job approval rating has dipped to 42 percent, causing many Democrats in hotly contested districts to distance themselves from his policies.
Ryan’s budget will have the same effect on Republicans in hotly contested districts. In the same way that vulnerable Democrats have to choose whether to support Obamacare, vulnerable Republicans will now have to choose whether to support the principles of Ryan’s toxic budget and face the consequences of their decision. Failure to support the budget may alienate a Republican from GOP leadership. Yet, supporting the budget could cause a worse fate: losing to a Democratic challenger.
No matter how many congressional Republicans line up behind Ryan’s budget, Democrats will undoubtedly exploit the proposal for its endless supply of talking points. In fact, just days after Ryan released his budget, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Rep. Steve Israel, has promised that the DCCC will do just that. Israel said that the DCCC will buy advertisements in battleground districts to expose the budget’s faults to undecided voters.
In an attempt to satisfy the right-wing faction of his own party and promote his party before the midterm elections, Ryan drafted a budget that may ultimately be used by the Democratic Party to convince voters to abandon the Republican Party.