Volunteers take on Romney

Volunteers with the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.orgpassed out hundreds of pink slips near the Americana at Brand Thursday as part of a nationwide campaign to highlight what organizers claimed were the job-killing policies of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his vice-presidential nominee, Rep. Paul Ryan.

Dressed in Romney masks on Brand Boulevard near Americana Way, volunteers also held up signs calling attention to the Republican presidential ticket’s “flawed” trickle-down fiscal policies.

Ryan’s budget plan, two similar versions of which have passed in the House, has received significant attention, even though Romney has said the ticket will be running on his own forthcoming plan.

According to an analysis by the Los Angeles Times, under Ryan’s budget plan, the Internal Revenue Service would tax the wealthiest Americans less, but many of the poorest ones more; Medicare would be transformed; Medicaid would be cut by about a third; and all functions of government other than those health programs, Social Security and the military would shrink to levels not seen since the 1930s.

While conceding that his plan would not balance the federal budget this decade, Ryan has argued that the key to economic growth is lowering tax rates.

“Growth is the key to fiscal sustainability,” he told the Times, “and low rates are the key to growth.”

-- Jason Wells, Times Community News

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