This week , Republicans announced their new budget with a highly produced video full of great rhetoric and patriotic music , but one major piece of Americana is missing -- a single mention of the middle class . The narrator , House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan , had promised to offer a `` path to prosperity '' but instead introduces economic policies that represent a dead end for America 's middle class and American manufacturing . Rarely has a budget been so brazen about protecting the richest and most powerful at the expense of the rest . Ryan , considered by many to be an ideological leader of conservative thought , correctly asserts that this is a moment for America to choose between different futures . He then outlines the conservative vision that Americans have rejected over and over again -- increasing U.S. debt through special deals to protect the most powerful corporations and dumping that burden onto the already struggling middle class . Though Ryan 's plan has deliberately avoided explaining how the tax numbers add up , in order to pay for the massive tax cuts at the top , everyone else would have to pay more . It 's likely that a middle-class family with two kids making about $ 70,000 a year would pay about $ 1,150 more in income tax , according to calculations made by the Center for American Progress . That 's an 80 % increase over what they pay now , while millionaires will pay less . That same family currently receives about $ 5,500 worth of federal support from K-12 education , transportation , health and science research , consumer safety , natural resource protections and federal law enforcement . The GOP budget would cut these `` nondefense discretionary spending '' by about 25 % , taking away a typical family 's services and protections by about $ 1,400 per year . To borrow a phrase from Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz , these budget priorities are truly `` of the 1 % , by the 1 % and for the 1 % . '' Opinion : GOP budget will tackle economic challenges . House Republicans further threaten the middle class by rewarding companies for sending American jobs overseas . They want to revive the outsourcing loopholes that Democrats , including myself , have fought hard to close . These loopholes would exempt overseas profits from taxes , creating a greater incentive to relocate investments to other countries and leaving more of the tax burden to our middle class . But this goes beyond economics to our values . Why else would Father Thomas Kelly , a constituent of Ryan 's and a Catholic priest , be moved to note his disappointment with the `` cruel budget plan '' that does n't match the Catholic teaching of `` justice for the poor and economic fairness '' ? The Republicans ' budget video shows a suburban family arriving home in a Volkswagen , rather than a Chrysler or a Buick . One can logically conclude that this was a self-conscious decision not to use a product of the American auto industry that their party and likely nominee , Mitt Romney , said should be allowed to die . The Republicans present a hypothetical choice going forward , but this reminds Americans that there were real choices already made over the last few years -- whether to let America crash into a Depression , permit our auto industry to fail or let Medicare for senior citizens become insolvent by 2017 . At each of these points , as now , conservatives have put the political gain of making Barack Obama a one-term president by opposing his efforts to save the economy and fix Medicare , ahead of making tough decisions to protect the middle class and senior citizens . The Republican budget is not a cruel joke . It is the very real and logical result of the economic theory that conservatives from Ryan to Romney embrace -- that it is the richest Americans who create jobs and add to the economy , not the middle class . This is not a `` bold and right '' call for shared sacrifice as Romney suggested of last year 's similar budget . It is simply forcing the middle class and senior citizens to take a hit to protect corporate subsidies and tax breaks for the rich and powerful . Many , including myself , had hoped for big ideas , but instead we got a new turn on an old congressional one -- a bridge to nowhere for 99 % of Americans .
Tom Perriello : House GOP 's new budget plan dumps more of tax burden on the middle class . Comment: Perriello says plan 's theory is essentially that the richest create jobs and add to economy . Perriello : GOP budget is not a cruel joke but logical result of conservative economic theory .