Democrats: Ryan plan good for rich, bad for middle class

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the ranking Democrat on the House budget, was in Raleigh Wednesday, to counter the appearance of Republican presidential candidate Paul Ryan, the House budget chairman.

“I think its important to tell the whole truth of what the Ryan plan would do,” said Van Hollen.

“If you wade through all the numbers you will find that the choice it makes is it provide another round of windfall tax cuts to the very wealthy, people like Mitt Romney at the expense of everyone else, including seniors on Medicare who will pay more, including middle income tax payers who will pay higher taxes so that the very wealthy can pay less taxes...” the Maryland congressman said in an interview at The Raleigh Times restaurant.

“All of this in service to a failed trickle down economic theory that we tried for eight years during the Bush administration and yet failed,” Van Hollen said. “At the end of that eight year period, we had a net loss of private sector jobs. The only thing that went up was the deficit. So why in the world would we want to return to failed economic strategy at the expense of the rest of the country?''

Van Hollen, who has a daughter who just graduated from Davidson, said Ryan plan would hurt college students who would see student aid through Pell Grants sharply decline under the Ryan plan.

He said the Ryan-Romney plan would hurt Medicare recipients by repealing Obamacare, so that people with high prescription drug costs – the so-called donut hole in their coverage – would pay more and require seniors to pay more for preventive health services. He said seniors would pay more in premiums and co-payments under the Republican plan on average of $300 per year.

Van Hollen will appear at a Democratic news conference with Rep. David Price on the campus of N.C. State University later Wednesday afternoon.