From Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/obama-and-gop-offer-two-visions-of-america-were-in-it-together-vs-youre-on-your-own-20120404
April 4, 2012
Rep. Paul Ryan did the world a favor by not trying to hide the ball with his budget—now adopted by House Republicans and endorsed by Gov. Romney. Its vision for America is clear, a vision that we at CBPP have been laying out in recent days (see here, here, here, and here).
President Obama made a similar point yesterday in his speech:
"I can’t remember a time when the choice between two competing visions of our future has been so unambiguously clear."
The two visions don’t even agree on the nature of the problem they're out to solve.
According to Rep. Ryan’s plan, the trouble is this: The poor and middle class have too much and the rich have too little. And his budget solves this problem very effectively, by eviscerating government programs that benefit the non-rich and using the "savings," mostly via tax cuts, to further enrich the wealthiest households.
The contrasting vision recognizes that the wealthiest households are doing great, while the poor and middle class are still struggling with high unemployment, stagnating incomes, insecure health coverage, and just the basic squeeze of trying to make ends meet, save for the future, help the kids get ahead, and so on.
And this vision sees government as having a role in correcting, at least in part, this imbalance. As Obama said in yesterday’s speech, citing a Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, "Through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves."
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