Tax cuts for the rich, service cuts for the rest of us

One measure of how severely the budget cuts just passed will affect the Lower Ninety-eight Percent of Americans is the fact that they just passed — so many Republicans voted against it that the final House vote was 216 to 214. But the President is delighted.

According to the New York Times (now don't get all worked up, You-know-who-you-are, these are just facts, not some "liberal media plot"), the cuts, over a five-year period ending in 2010,

. . . will achieve savings of $6.4 billion in Medicare, the health care program for the elderly, through a variety of changes that includehigher premiums for all beneficiaries, with steeper increases for the more affluent and a freeze in payments to home health care providers.

In the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled, $4.8 billion will be saved in part by increasing co-payments and reducing payments for prescription drugs.

Anyone you know on Medicare or Medicaid?

And, according to the Washington Post,

College students could face higher interest rates when their banks get squeezed by the federal government. And some cotton farmers will find support payments nicked. State-led efforts to force deadbeat parents to pay their child support may also have to be curtailed.

Just as shameless as the legislation itself was the maneuvering by the Republican leadership. Democrats were excluded from the process, representatives from insurance and drug companies were included, and the legislation was put in final form pretty much in the middle of the night and submitted for a vote the next day before anyone had a chance to really review it.

UPDATE: Roy Blunt just lost the leadership vote to John Boehner, who is a step further away from the scandals, even though Blunt got credit for the success of this disgusting legislation. Hm.