Tea Party Budget Reduces Taxes on the Wealthy, Cuts Health Care Funding
MADISON- At a press conference in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Ron Johnson broadly endorsed the budget proposal presented by fellow Tea Party Senator Pat Toomey.
In light of the tremendous backlash against House Republicans who supported Paul Ryan’s disastrous “Path to Poverty” budget that dismantles Medicare, Johnson’s Tea Party budget leaves Medicare alone and instead relies heavily on repealing the successful Affordable Care Act, which Johnson has assailed as the “greatest single assault on our freedom” in his lifetime. The Affordable Care Act ensures that more than 63,000 Wisconsinites with “pre-existing conditions” will no longer be denied insurance coverage or forced to pay more for care and will help more than 1.3 million Wisconsin families with tax credits and other assistance so they may purchase health care more affordably.
Like Ryan’s proposal, however, the intentionally vague Tea Party budget uses these cuts, along with plans to turn Medicaid into a block-grant program, to offset tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, reducing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25% and calling for the elimination of unspecified loopholes and deductions.
“After months of silence, Ron Johnson has come out of hiding to support what he calls a serious budget proposal,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate said Thursday. “And he’s right – the Tea Party budget that preserves tax breaks for the wealthy while reducing access to affordable health care is serious – serious trouble for millions of working Wisconsin families.”
