There are no moderate Republicans in the House of Representatives. Of course, some members are secretly appalled by the views of Mike Johnson, the new president. But what they think in the privacy of their minds is not important. What matters is what they do, and every single one of them supported the election of a radical extremist.
In fact, most people – I think even political journalists – don’t fully realize that Johnson is more extremist than they think.
Much of the coverage of the Republican understandably focuses on his role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election. By the way, I would like to note that the widely used expression “election denial” is a euphemism that softens and diffuses the issue we are talking about. Trying to keep your party in power after losing a free and fair election without even the slightest hint of significant voter fraud is not just denial; It is a betrayal of democracy.
Johnson’s conservative views on society have also been widely reported, but I’m not sure how many people understand the extent of his bigotry. Johnson isn’t just someone who wants to legalize discrimination against LGBTQ Americans and ban same-sex marriage; There is evidence that he defends the criminalization of gay sex.
But the extremism of Johnson and the party that elected him goes beyond rejecting democracy and attempting to reverse decades of social progress. The new Speaker of the House of Representatives has also defended an incredibly reactionary economic program.
Until his sudden rise to the presidency, Johnson was a relatively unknown figure. But for a time he served as president of the Republican Studies Committee, a group that develops policy proposals. And now that Johnson has become the face of his party, people should definitely take a look at the 2020 budget proposal put forward by the committee during his presidency.
If you read the proposal carefully and set aside the often evasive language, you will see that it calls for the elimination of America’s social safety net, not just the programs for the poor, but also the policies that form the basis of America’s financial stability Middle class.
Let’s start with Social Security, whose budget calls for raising the retirement age, currently 67, to 69 or 70, with possible further increases as life expectancy increases.
At first glance this may seem plausible. Until the huge drop caused by Covid, average life expectancy in the United States had been steadily increasing over time. But there is a large and growing gap between the life expectancy of wealthy Americans and the life expectancy of lower-income groups, including not only the poor but also much of the working class. So raising the retirement age would severely penalize the least advantaged Americans, the very people who depend most on Social Security.
Then there’s Medicare, for which the budget proposes to raise the eligibility age “so that it corresponds to the normal Social Security retirement age and then adjust that age to life expectancy.” Translation: Raise the Medicare age from 65 to 70 and then keep raising it.
But wait, there’s more. Most non-elderly Americans have health insurance through their companies. However, this system relies heavily on guidelines that the Study Committee has proposed abolishing. This is because benefits are not considered taxable income, but to maintain this tax benefit, companies must (generally) insure all of their employees rather than offering benefits only to highly compensated individuals.
The Commission’s budget would remove this incentive for comprehensive coverage, reduce tax deductions on corporate contributions and offer the same deduction for insurance purchased by individuals. As a result, some companies would likely limit themselves to giving cash to their highest earners, who could use it to purchase expensive individual plans, and would no longer provide coverage for the rest of their workers.
And it goes without saying that the budget would entail drastic cuts – $3 trillion over a decade – to Medicaid, children’s health insurance and subsidies that help lower-income Americans get insurance under the Health Care Act afford. Affordable.
How many Americans would lose their health insurance under these proposals? In 2017, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that Donald Trump’s attempt to repeal Obamacare would leave 23 million Americans without insurance. Since the Republican Study Committee’s proposals are much more draconian and far-reaching, the losses would probably be much greater.
That’s why Mike Johnson is advocating policies on retirement, health care, and other areas that I can’t go into in detail for lack of space, including food stamps, which would essentially mean the end of American society as we know it. We would become a much crueler and less safe country with much more misery.
I think it’s safe to say that these proposals would be extremely unpopular if voters knew about them. But will they get to know her?
In fact, I would like to see a focus group asking what Americans think about Johnson’s policy positions. Here’s my guess, based on past experience: Many voters simply won’t want to believe that prominent Republicans, let alone the Speaker of the House, would actually advocate such terrible things.
But they defend her and he defends her. The Republican Party has become truly extremist on both economic and social issues. The question now is whether the American public will notice.
Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize winner in economics. © The New York Times, 2023 Translation of news clips
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